Summer job postings are stabilizing after a three-year decline, says a new report from Indeed Hiring Lab, but young Canadians are once again being sprung from school into another “soft” labour market.
National summer job postings were up four per cent in early May compared to a year ago, according to data from Indeed. Its report tracked Canadian postings on Indeed.com that included the term “summer” (or été) in the job title. It noted that the annual hiring cycle usually ramps up in January and cools off mid-May.
Indeed Hiring Lab found that summer camp jobs were the most common category and made up 13 per cent of summer job postings as of early May, down from 15 per cent from the same time last year. There was also higher seasonal demand for a range of jobs, including painters, warehouse workers, administrative assistants and youth and community care workers.
While this year’s numbers reflect a “relatively stable summer hiring appetite compared to 2025,” the report noted that summer job postings are still down 37 per cent from their 2022 peak, with three consecutive years of declines between 2023-25.
One factor that influences the summer job market is the strength of the broader labour market and who is available to work, said Brendon Bernard, senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab.
Bernard said workers in a strong economy tend to change jobs more often and move up the career ladder into higher paying positions but stay in their current roles or take on lower-level jobs in a weaker market when opportunities are scarce.
“If they’re not moving on, then the employers don’t need to backfill those roles, and new entrants to the labour market need to find something else to do,” he said. “And if the job market is weak, there might not be that many options.”
Bernard said summer job postings also evolve in line with broader economic trends.
“We’ve been in a time of subdued economic growth, so employers aren’t clamouring for workers,” he said. “The unemployment rate is in the range of seven per cent, which isn’t too high, but it’s definitely up substantially from where it was during the really hot post-pandemic labour market.”
Canada’s youth job market has been in “distress” since 2023, the report said, particularly among teens ages 15–19. While youth employment usually jumps when the school year ends, that trend has recently been more “muted.”
During years with stronger labour markets (such as 2018, 2019 and 2022), Bernard’s analysis found that youth employment rates rose by an average of 11 percentage points on a non-seasonally adjusted basis between March and the peak in July.
“Since 2023, the jumps have been in the range of 9.1 to 9.4 percentage points, on average, a net 16 per cent drop in the rate of youth entering summer employment,” the report said.
Bernard said posting trends on Indeed suggest this summer will be similar. While employers’ hiring appetites haven’t rebounded, Bernard said they haven’t deteriorated either.
“It does suggest that there’s going to be people who are working in jobs that they might not have if the market was stronger,” he said. “And there is going to be some people who just aren’t able to break into the summer job market at all.”
This summer’s hiring season isn’t entirely done, though Bernard noted it’s likely many jobs have already been filled. He said that employers start posting seasonal jobs in February, and job seekers can start their search by researching what opportunities are out there, deciding what they’re good at, what they like to do and what skills are in demand, as well as trying to network and pick up new skills.
“Even in a tough job market, it’s important to find some productive uses of your time, even though it understandably can be discouraging,” he said.
• Email: jswitzer@postmedia.com