Pandemic impact on PG youth employment highlighted in UNBC survey

Around 85 per cent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Prince George area.

Each year, students in the Political Science 320 class at UNBC design and construct a survey.

“This year, they chose a topic with the Chamber of Commerce locally on impacts of employment to youth in Prince George,” said Senior Instructor Jason Morris

“The key finding wasn’t surprisingly that everybody was impacted in terms of their employment by the pandemic, but the students learned particularly why.”

The survey was aimed at youth (18-29) in Prince George, and received over 400 responses.

“They found that students and young people lost jobs, they had reduced hours, and they had more responsibilities put onto those reduced hours in many cases,” Morris said.

The survey had found that:

• More than 85 percent of respondents were negatively affected in their employment by the pandemic; this related to reduced hours, increased responsibilities, layoffs, closures, and having to find new jobs.
• The main concerns of employed respondents were wages, hours/scheduling, and benefits.
• Unemployed youth during the pandemic reported education, lack of desirable opportunities and personal commitments, inhibiting their efforts to gain employment.
• Of those surveyed, youth 18-21 years old, women, non-binary, Indigenous, and people of colour reported being most severely impacted by employment matters during the pandemic.

Morris added what was found in Prince George was not unique, and confirmed research and literature in other jurisdictions.

“The students looked at the results, and recommended that businesses look at the needs of younger people for hiring, and that includes wages, benefits, and as well more of an outreach to women, non-binary people, and people of colour,” Morris said.

“It’s interesting as well from the survey, despite the hardships many young people face with employment, they’ve also reported some understanding or even satisfaction with the way things went. We can hypothesize that is attributable to the challenges society, politics, government, everyone faced because of the pandemic.”