69% of young university graduates held permanent full-time jobs in 2025: Statistics Canada

Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians aged 25 to 34 with a bachelor’s degree or higher held permanent full-time jobs in 2025, according to a new Statistics Canada release.

That was down from 71% in 2022 but above the 65% average recorded from 2017 through 2019. The comparable 2025 rates were 71% for people with trade certificates, 56% for high-school graduates and 43% for people without a high-school diploma.

Average hourly wages were $39.18 for university graduates, $34.71 for trade-certificate holders, $31.39 for college or CEGEP graduates and $28.77 for high-school graduates.

Statistics Canada also reported a 66% permanent full-time employment rate for young women with university degrees, compared with 72% for young men. Women in those jobs earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily, released October 28, 2026.

Image: Illustrative stock photo of young adults in a workplace by Proxyclick Visitor Management System on Unsplash, used under the Unsplash Licence. It does not depict survey respondents. Cropped/resized by WordPress.