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Or sign-in if you have an account.Londoner Claudia Dylinski, 27, says she's looking for full time work for nearly two years, applying to hundreds of position to no avail. Photo by Jonathan Juha/The London Free PressClaudia Dylinski half-jokingly says she’s had only one real full-time job for the better part of the past two years: looking for work.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorSince moving back to London in 2024 to be closer to family after the end of a relationship, the 27-year-old said she’s probably applied for more than 500 jobs – something she’s “not even exaggerating” about.Though Dylinski has a background as a personal support worker – a field she left because of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic – she has broadened her search, applying for everything from social work positions to barista jobs, all to no avail.Never in a million years did she think it would take this long to find a full-time job, she said while attending a job fair in June.FP Work touches on HR strategy, labour economics, office culture, technology and more.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Work will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again“I’ve been to multiple interviews that were very successful in my eyes, going through several rounds of interviews, and I’ve left some of them having a good feeling, only to get a message saying they went with someone else,” she said.“Honestly, I’ve started to lose hope, to lose faith. It’s like, what am I doing wrong? What am I saying wrong that no one would hire me? What exactly are employers looking for?”It could be, however, that local employers simply aren’t hiring many people. Since last October, the London metropolitan area – which includes St. Thomas and Strathroy – has shed nearly 20,000 net jobs, according to Statistics Canada, while job vacancies have steadily declined. There were about 8,400 job openings in the first quarter of 2026, down from 10,200 a year earlier.As a result, the local unemployment rate has climbed to its highest level in more than a decade, excluding the pandemic years. It peaked at 9.2 per cent in April, giving London the highest or second-highest jobless rate in Canada since February. The area’s jobless rate edged down to 8.7 per cent in May.Economists say London’s manufacturing-heavy economy and its exposure to trade uncertainty with the United States are among the reasons the city has dropped to the bottom after years of maintaining a jobless rate below both the Ontario and Canadian averages, but there’s more to the decline than that.On a purely statistical basis, London’s jobless rate is being driven higher by elevated youth unemployment. Although not a unique problem, the city’s unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 24 was 22.3 per cent in May, nearly nine percentage points above the national average of 13.4 per cent and well above the 6.2 per cent rate for locals aged 25 to 54.“In the case of the youth, a lot of them are searching for their first job and they just can’t find it,” Andrew Fields, an analyst at Statistics Canada, said. “That’s really keeping the London unemployment rate high.”But the tough times younger Londoners are facing also reflect the overall weakness of the local economy, Mahmood Nanji, a policy fellow at the Ivey Business School at Western University, said. The area is grappling with the fallout of higher oil prices amid the conflict in Iran and slower population growth brought about by federal immigration policy changes, including a cap on international students.Young people “are experiencing the impacts of a slower-growing economy and it is a very slow-growing economy,” he said. “Whenever there’s a contraction of the economy, it’s the youth unemployment that usually gets impacted first.”Nanji said London’s export-oriented economy has left the city exposed to trade tensions between Canada and the U.S., which have dampened businesses’ appetite for new investment.Manufacturing accounts for more than 10 per cent of London’s economy, with more than 700 businesses exporting about $7.8 billion worth of goods to the U.S. in 2023, mostly in automotive and manufacturing, but also in food and agriculture, according to Statistics Canada.The vast majority of Canadian exports continue to enter the U.S. tariff-free under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which officially entered a 10-year period of annual renewals on July 1, but the region hasn’t escaped unscathed from sector-specific tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles.“In the case of London, along with some other centres, like Kitchener-Waterloo and Barrie, it’s a function of the makeup of its economy,” Nanji said.“Much of it has to do with the fact that London has a large advanced manufacturing base, and advanced manufacturing has been particularly hard-hit in Canada because of the tariffs and the uncertainty, so the No. 1 reason for this escalated (unemployment) rate is trade uncertainty. That has a huge impact.”Since July 2024 – only months before U.S. President Donald Trump began his tariff threats against Canada – the London region has lost about 11,700 net manufacturing jobs, according to Statistics Canada.For example, Magna International Inc. last summer cited the extended closure of General Motors Co.’s CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll as a reason for shutting down its Qualtech Seating Systems plant in London, affecting nearly 50 jobs. Autoneum Holding AG, a Swiss company that makes carpets and wheelhouse liners for vehicles, has also announced plans to close its 136-employee plant in the city by year-end.The tumultuous economic climate also led Signal49 Research, formerly the Conference Board of Canada, to project a steep decline in London’s economic growth in 2026, with gross domestic product (GDP) dropping to 0.9 per cent this year from 2.3 per cent last year.But trade-related impacts alone don’t fully explain London’s jump in unemployment. After all, manufacturing isn’t the only industry seeing job losses.Accommodation and food services, as well as professional, scientific and technical services – an umbrella that includes accountants, paralegals and software developers – have also recorded large job declines, with employment in both sectors dropping by nearly 13,000 net positions in May on a year-over-year basis, according to Statistics Canada.Those losses have, however, been offset a bit by gains in other areas, such as education, transportation and wholesale and retail. Joshua Randall, a 39-year-old father of three, says he has considered moving his family out of London to find work after being laid off nearly two years ago. (Jonathan Juha/The London Free Press)Joshua Randall, a 39-year-old father of three, counts himself among the knowledge workers struggling to secure employment.After working for several years for a startup accelerator – companies that offer services such as data analytics to businesses looking to grow or modify their operations – he said he was laid off about two years ago and has found the search for a new job to be both “a journey and a battle.”Randall said he’s doing some contract work to get by, but he hasn’t been able to find a full-time job in the city that comes close to his previous salary of $90,000 a year.“My wife and I have very much considered moving out of London because the practical realities on the ground are that there are not jobs here,” he said.“I guess some people would be of the mind to find whatever they can in the meantime, but I can’t afford a minimum-wage job with a mortgage. Those jobs keep me alive, but they don’t really move anything forward. If I’m just keeping the lights on, I’m not putting anything away for my children’s education, I’m not putting anything away for their futures.” Newcomer Carolina Diaz, 41, says she has yet to be called for a job interview since arriving in Canada six months ago. (Jonathan Juha/The London Free Press)The job search has been almost as disheartening for Carolina Diaz.The 41-year-old arrived in London from Colombia about six months ago and, though she has a background in finance and international relations, said she’s fully aware it will be some time before she can work again in her field. She is open to any type of job while improving her language skills.At the same time, she didn’t expect the only work she would find would be occasional cleaning shifts.“I would love something more stable with more regular hours,” she said in Spanish. “I have been to several job fairs and I even joined an employment agency, but I still haven’t gotten my first interview yet.”Part of the problem stems from a mismatch between jobseekers’ skills and what employers are looking for, Ben Cecil, chief executive of the Pathways Employment Help Centre, said.He said higher unemployment rates translate into a larger pool of candidates, meaning companies are likely becoming more selective when hiring.“But there have always been many applicants for any single job, and that remains true today, as it has always been,” Cecil said. “Even though we have high unemployment . . . there are still job opportunities out there. It’s just about the right person applying for the right position and (workers) developing the right skills that the employers are looking for right now.”There are also some silver linings.Rishi Sondhi, an economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, said London’s economy is dealing with “broad economic weakness,” but some of the employment declines are “timing related” rather than structural.For example, he said construction of the Volkswagen Canada-owned PowerCo electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas had boosted employment in several professions.“Investment spending has kind of come off the boil for that particular project, relative to its 2025 peak,” he said, “so you have an idiosyncratic sort of pullback in professional services related to the unwind of this massive construction project.”Sondhi also said there’s been a gradual improvement in Ontario’s labour market that should eventually spill over into London, along with increases in manufacturing output over the past few months across the country.“We’re getting some very, very tentative evidence that the very worst of the blow from the trade war may be in the rear-view mirror,” he said.“We are getting evidence that businesses are adapting to the environment, and they’re kind of understanding that this is the new normal, and we need to get on with things. It’s going to be shaky moving forward, but I would say it’s going to be shaky on sort of an improving trend.” Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.