Alberta has a young male unemployment rate of 20%, double that of young women. I believe the Employment Equity act, which mandates discrimination of male employees, is a major factor.

Edit: the link in the middle, the “employment equity act”, can’t work. This is it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_equity_(Canada)

So a few months ago we saw all those articles about how Alberta has a sudden surge in young male unemployment, at 20%. It’s double for young men than young women, and as the young male unemployment rate suddenly increased, the young female unemployment rate stayed the same:

link 1

link 2

I believe legal discrimination under the Employment Equity Act) is a major factor. Under the act, any federal employer is required by law to discriminate against male applicants in favor of female applicants. This essential means that for entry level jobs, a woman will always be hired over a man.

Took a look at a snapshot of Albertas employment situation, with official statistics here. Scrolling down you’ll see how men are significantly more likely to to be unemployed, but this one star really jumped out at me- women are 63% of employed youth with college degrees. That’s nearly a 2:1 ratio, and the sort of jobs that would be hired on a federal level.

Considering that women are automatically preferred over men for federal hiring, might this explain the significantly higher male unemployment rate in Alberta?