Trending: Study’s rosy outlook won’t help Toronto’s youth find jobs

According to the New York-based Citi Foundation, Toronto is the best place among 35 major cities around the world for young people to succeed.

Too bad no one told Toronto’s young people that.

According to the study released Monday, Toronto ranks ahead of heavyweights like New York, London, Sydney and Hong Kong in terms of offering an economic environment for young people to prosper in.

“Toronto is proud to be ranked as the best city in the world for providing economic opportunities for young people,” Toronto Mayor John Tory is quoted in the study. “We understand the key to building a fair and prosperous city includes connecting young people to jobs.”

According to the study, Toronto ranks second in terms of government support and institutional framework for youth, second in employment and entrepreneurship, and first in “human and social capital.”

Unfortunately for this study, those numbers don’t seem to jibe with any of the current statistics for youth employment in Toronto.

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Toronto’s youth unemployment rate in 2013 was a staggering 18.1 per cent, and the youth employment rate was 43.5 per cent – the worst of any region in Ontario, with Ontario being among the worst provinces for unemployment. Just this summer it was estimated there are 83,000 people between the ages of 15 to 24 in the GTA and Hamilton who are neither at work nor at school.

The Citi Foundation study interviewed 150 individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 from each major city, including Lima, Bangkok and Jakarta. And interestingly, Toronto finished 30th out of 35 cities when it came to youth optimism – how optimistic young people are about their prospects.

And therein lies the key flaw with this study: How can Toronto’s young people feel both positive about all the resources available to them but overwhelmingly negative about their prospects?

It’s likely because on paper – in the categories the study was focused on – Toronto’s youth may have more resources available to them than cities like Manila or Mexico City, but they don’t necessarily reflect the difficult reality of job-hunting in the city. For example, there are regular employment fairs and job boards set up throughout the city, but that doesn’t mean they are chock-full of available jobs, or that the jobs are suited to the young people looking for work. At some fairs recent grads are asked to just submit their resumes should a position open up, not because a number of positions are already available.

The fact of the matter is that Toronto has a long way to go to improve the employment prospects of its young people – ask any grad struggling to get a foot in the door or having to take a minimum-wage job to make ends meet while pursuing their career – and the misleading results of a study won’t help matters.