Quebecers are trying somehow to get out of unemployment, but feel that the noose tightens in their job search, which stretches like never before.
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Almost one unemployed in four (23.8%) was looking for work for more than 27 weeks last month. It is unheard of since 1998 (except 2020 and 2021).
“It’s very difficult,” says Susana Peraza, who is looking for a job in household interview. We feel the restriction in work ”.
The newspaper It met at a Parc-Extension Canada Service Center in Montreal last week. Not easy for her to find a shoe at her foot.
“Today, a friend called me to tell me about his difficulties and, yesterday, another told me the same thing in Jarry Park:” it’s difficult “,” she breathes without losing her smile.
Susana Peraza has experience in residences of the elderly. Today she would like to get a good stable job.
Photo Francis character
A few tens of kilometers away, Gabriel Bikah plays in the same film.
“I am looking for a simple job that can allow me to support my needs,” he says, not far from a boiling world of people on the Montreal shore.
Gabriel Bikah, job seeker.
Photo Francis character
The 30 -year -old man, a graduate in agronomy in Cameroon, says he is ready to accept a “job as a production daily or interviews”. He is also interested in the financial field.
Quebec affected
There were more than 310,300 Quebecers unemployed last June.
“It is 108,600 unemployed more than in June 2023, an increase of 54% in the space of two years,” analyzed our financial columnist Michel Girard in our pages.
And it was in Quebec that this number has increased the most percentage in the country, he noted.
A month later, the data in July is slightly better, unemployment fell with a meager 0.8 percentage point.
According to economist Pierre Fortin, young people have been touched there for two years.
“Unemployment growth among those under 25 is three times stronger than in adults aged 25 to 64. There is simply too much competition on the job market, ”he wrote recently in the magazine News.
And the Yo-Yo of customs duties of the Trump administration swell uncertainty.
“Employment is mainly concentrated in part -time positions and in sectors less sensitive to economic cycles”, noted the main economist of Desjardins, Sonny Scarfone, in early August, in an analysis.
“It touches everyone”
At the Montreal Unemployment Committee (CCM), we can feel that something has changed.
The job researchers crossing the organization’s door suffer in silence.
Gabriel Pelletier, coordinator of the Montreal Unemployment Committee (CCM), sees his office of people in their fifties who did not expect to lose their jobs and who are taken with a mortgage to pay.
Photo provided by Gabriel Pelletier
Young people, not so young, people from recent immigration or who have grown up here … The profile is very varied. We are urgently looking for a livelihood.
“It touches everyone. It affects anyone, ”sums up Gabriel Pelletier, CCM coordinator.
What shocks the lawyer is that the solutions exist. They are there, on your table, but Ottawa continues to split their hair in four, according to him.
“We should decrease the number of hours to qualify for employment insurance. We could speed up the fairly heavy bureaucratic process, ”he concludes.
– with the collaboration of David Descôteaux
The five worst unemployment rates (three -month mobile average)
1– Gaspésie-illes-de-la-Madeleine: 10.1%
2– Montréal: 8,9%
3– Laval : 6,3%
4– Mauricie: 6.2%
5– Lanaudière: 5.8%
Source: Quebec Statistics, Statistics Canada – June
