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Making educational choices that lead to good labour market outcomes (ones that meet the needs of both the graduate and the economy) was always an inexact science, but it is now more difficult.
In a world being reshaped by a turbulent economy and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, matching education and future labour market needs can seem impossible. When the policymakers in charge of shaping the future have no clarity as to what it might look like, it stands to reason that young people making career choices have even less vision. Still, if ever there was a time to help students make good choices, for everyone’s sake, it is now.
The evidence of a mismatch between the skills of young workers and labour market needs are visible around the world, Canada included. According to an October 2025 study by the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC), the number of Canadian degree holders aged between 15 and 24 has never been higher, but vacancies for jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree and fewer than three years experience dropped by more than half from early 2024.
The number of job openings requiring a degree peaked at 70,000 in 2023 and then fell to fewer than 30,000. There are some special factors causing the decline, including that many companies, particularly in the tech industry, hired aggressively a few years ago and are now adjusting their workforces to match a different point in the business cycle. In practical terms, however, it means that the job market for graduates has become increasingly unforgiving.
The use of AI is also having an impact on all workers, although entry-level workers are clearly in the direct line of fire. According to the LMIC, as of the first-quarter of 2025, ‘early-career’ postings for jobs in business, marketing and human resources had fallen by one-third, with the likely explanation being that much of the work traditionally done by young workers could now by done by algorithms.
As tuition rises and governments reduce spending on education, skipping higher education may seem like a good idea to many. The data do not quite support that choice, however if the goal is to maximize the probability of being employed.
In 2025, the unemployment rate of all of those aged 15 to 24 was 13.8 per cent, while for those with a bachelor’s degree it was 10.8 per cent. However, for those with post-secondary certificates or diplomas, the rate was 8.4 per cent, suggesting that there were some educational choices that provided better outcomes than others, at least for workers at the start of their careers.
The findings of a study out of Latvia, a country on the Baltic Sea with just 1.8 million people, might shed some light on the importance of career education globally. The study, which comes from the Latvian Education Accelerator (a part of the World Economic Forum’s Accelerators Network) surveyed 5,000 secondary school students aged between 15 and 19 in 2024 and 2025. It found a wide gap between what students want to study and where they are likely to find employment.
The Latvian students were interested in creative fields such as sports and in beauty services, sectors which are not unimportant but which only accounted for a small share of the country’s GDP. In contrast, the higher growth, higher productivity fields of entrepreneurship, finance, economics and information communications technology were attracting relatively low interest while what they called “strategically critical” fields such as energy, transport, logistics and manufacturing are even less popular.
The study’s authors went as far as blaming influencers for the gap, saying, “Influencers are rarely engineers or electricians; entrepreneurs seldom receive awards on prime-time television.”
That influencers are playing a role is perhaps not surprising because many of the Latvian students were not getting much guidance from their educational institutions. Just 17 per cent of those surveyed reported having had an individual conversation with a career counsellor at school, relying instead on parents or peers. At least officially it appears Canadian students receive more guidance, but it also seems likely that counsellors (who themselves likely have a limited idea of what the future labour market will look like) are competing with influencers, formal and informal.
The Latvian study also found that conversations around AI were largely absent from schools, with students understanding its importance but unsure what that would actually mean to them. Given the proliferation of AI over the past two years, things might have changed somewhat since the survey was taken, but it also seems likely that whether we are talking about Latvia or anywhere else, the unease around what AI will mean for careers has only grown.
The final conclusion of the Latvia study was that young people were eager to get work experience early, but that employers were not offering them the chance. Of those surveyed, nearly half who looked for a summer internship or job were unable to find one. The World Economic Forum calls this a “missed opportunity” for the employers, particularly for those in the less glamourous industries, the ones that have low visibility but high strategic importance.
Looking forward, the Latvian conclusions offer important lessons for countries such as Canada. The data shows what appears to be a mismatch between skills offered and those required, with some quick to point to students as the ones making the bad choices.
In fact, if we want to cultivate the skills needed for the economy to grow in the future, there is clearly a need for actions from all players. That might start with educational institutions providing more guidance, but it also needs to continue through to organizations that provide employment opportunities and cultivate paths for young workers early in their careers.
Letting an ad-hoc mix of influencers and friends guide training and career choices might prove short-sighted and only increase the mismatches in future.