How 3 young Islanders have negotiated the pandemic job market

This story is part of the series Job Shift: How work on P.E.I. has changed in the pandemic. Find more of these stories here.

Work life has been a struggle for most people on P.E.I., but it has been particularly difficult for young Islanders.

While Islanders established in the workforce have had to deal with figuring out how to work from home, workplace outbreaks, and regularly changing public health rules, younger Islanders are more likely to have been put out of a job altogether, or been struggling to find work in areas that were previously reliable.

That uncertainty is reflected in the volatility of the unemployment rate, with the rate for young people seeing much bigger swings than the overall rate.

The overall rate peaked at 14.3 per cent in June 2020. The youth rate hit 26.4 per cent that month, and remained over 14 per cent until January. In 2021, it was back over 14 per cent in June, August and October. The overall rate was below 10 per cent for nine months in 2021.

Young people, noted UPEI economist Jim Sentance, are more likely to work in service industries such as restaurants and retail, where the pandemic has caused the most disruption.

"There have been periods where that has just been shut down and work isn't available," said Sentance.

McKenna Moore, a third-year student at UPEI, has watched more than one job opportunity disappear during the pandemic.

She was working for the athletics department at UPEI when it started, and the closing down of activities at the sports centre led to her being laid off. She found work at GoodLife Fitness in January 2021, but public health restrictions were creating complications for that business as well. She was being offered short hours, and was having trouble reconciling what she was being offered with her class schedule.

Moore left GoodLife in September, and hasn't been able to find suitable employment since.

"Every single day. Honestly, I check Indeed at least three or four times a day. I try to check other job sites.… Anywhere to try to find something," she said.

Moore is aiming to study physiotherapy. It's a difficult program to get into, and she is looking for work that will give her more experience working with the public as part of building her resumé.

"It's just a lack of variety of jobs," she said, adding it's definitely worse in the pandemic.

"There was always a lot more options out there."