Employment rates of full-time students

More students combine school and work

• Whether by necessity, desire to make more money or to gain work experience, a significant number of youth have a job while they are full-time students. In 2003, two in five full-time students aged 15 to 24 found themselves in this situation.
• Over the 1980s, the proportion of youth who juggled work and full-time school increased dramatically, reaching a peak of 41% in 1989. This proportion, however, fell considerably during the recession of the early 1990s. Despite the economic recovery that followed, the employment rate among full-time students continued to decline although to a lesser extent than during the recession. It was not until 1998 that the proportion of full-time students who had jobs increased, from a low of 32.1% in 1997 to 39.0% in 2003.
• The increase in the employment rate among full-time students during the 1980s was equally shared among those aged 15 to 19 and 20 to 24, but during the decline in the 1990s, it fell only for 15 to 19 year-olds. This has resulted in a large gap between teenagers and older youth in the 1990s and remained in the early 2000s.
• In 2003, nearly 3 in 5 full-time students (57%) who were working were employed as retail salespeople, sales clerks or cashiers, food counter and kitchen helpers, and as clerical workers, service station attendants and servers in food and beverage.

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