Precarious Jobs: No Path to Homeownership in Canada
Blame Crappy Jobs, Gig Hell, and Wages Stuck in the ’90s
Hey, if you’re a young Canadian scrolling through this while doom-scrolling job postings, you’re not alone. The dream of owning a home? It’s basically a fairy tale now, thanks to skyrocketing house prices clashing with a job market that’s straight-up failing us. Average home prices hovered around $675,000 to $680,000 in late 2025 , while we’re stuck with underemployment, gig-economy traps, and wages that haven’t budged in real terms. It’s not laziness—it’s a rigged system. Let’s break it down, with some cold, hard stats to back it up.
First off, underemployment is the silent killer of savings. Sure, you might have a degree, but you’re slinging coffee or temping because full-time gigs are ghosts. Youth unemployment hit 14.7% in September 2025 , spiking to a whopping 20.8% for 15-19-year-olds in Q3. That’s recession-level bad, folks—up from just 10% in 2022. And it’s not just joblessness; 4.5% of young people are stuck in involuntary part-time work, compared to 1% for older adults. We’re overqualified and underpaid, applying to hundreds of jobs without a callback. No wonder 88% of renters think homeownership is impossible .
Then there’s the precarious job nightmare—gig work, contracts, zero-hour shifts. Thanks to AI, immigration floods, and corporate greed, stable employment is a relic. Youth employment rate dipped to 53.6% in July 2025, the lowest since ’98 (pandemic aside). These jobs don’t offer benefits, pensions, or security, making it impossible to qualify for a mortgage. Banks want steady income? Good luck when your Uber shifts fluctuate weekly. This isn’t “flexibility”—it’s exploitation, leaving us in perpetual rent traps.
And stagnant real wages? The cherry on top. Median income for 25-34-year-olds is around $48,400 annually , with average hourly wages for youth at $22.10 in April 2025 . But real wage growth? Barely keeping pace with inflation over decades, and for young folks, it’s stagnating outright. Housing costs rose, but our paychecks didn’t—median real hourly wages only grew 20% since 1981. Inflation eats savings, student debt piles up, and suddenly that down payment is a pipe dream.
Bottom line: Policymakers love touting “recovery,” but for us, it’s a generational screw-job. High costs, crappy jobs, flat pay—it’s fueling unhappiness and delaying life milestones. Does the Liberal government want to fix this? Not really: better job protections, wage hikes, and actual affordable housing are not in their agenda at all. Just remember when in 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau sparked backlash when they described precarious work—characterized by low wages, job insecurity, and short-term contracts—as “the new reality” that Canadians “have to accept.” This dismissive stance frustrated advocates for young and vulnerable workers, who argued it ignored the systemic exploitation driving gig economy traps and stagnant opportunities, rather than treating instability as an inevitable norm worth fighting.
