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And while the Canadian economy gained more jobs than expected last month, driving the overall unemployment rate down to 7.4% from 7.6% in April, the unemployment rate among 15- to 24-year-olds was little changed.

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Kathyn Blaze Carlson talks about University Grads on the Posted Podcast

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To be sure, the statistical reality is a painful one, and it is showing little, if any, signs of relenting.

Beyond employment prospects, tuition fees have risen far faster than inflation since the 1990s, and today’s students pay twice as much for an undergraduate degree than they did in 1996 and nine times as much as in the 1970s. Today’s students are also competing with a pool of graduates twice as large as it was in 1990, when only 11% of Canadians reported having a university degree.

The situation has been so bleak for so long that some observers call Ms. Sayed’s cohort the “lost generation.” Others call her and her ilk, NINJA: No Income, No Job, and No Assets.

Surely, the latter is true. But whose fault is it? And is her extended transition to adulthood set to be the norm for the future?

Some analysts are ready to concede that the Sarah Sayeds of this country are heralding a cultural shift: Graduates and their parents should no longer expect a seamless school-to-work transition because a university degree is no longer the promised one-way ticket to a career. The on-ramp to adulthood is longer and twistier. Thirty is the new 25.