What happened
A new white paper from Express Employment Professionals, built on Harris Poll surveys, finds that true entry-level work in Canada is getting harder to find and harder to land, as reported by Talent Canada. The paper is titled Sounding the Alarm: The Narrowing Path to Work.
The numbers are lopsided. 81 per cent of hiring managers say entry-level jobs now require more skills than in the past, and 82 per cent of job seekers agree. 60 per cent of hiring managers call entry-level roles essential or very important for developing future talent. Yet 49 per cent say AI could let them shrink their workforce, and 45 per cent say it is more efficient to use AI for entry-level tasks than to hire and train someone.
The pressure is already visible. Recent university graduates faced 10.6 per cent unemployment in 2025, the highest in 30 years outside the pandemic. The hiring survey covered 504 Canadian hiring decision-makers and the job seeker survey covered 502 adults, both in November 2025.
Why it matters if you are hiring
Many employers are posting "entry-level" roles that are not really entry-level. Tasks like data entry and scheduling are being automated, so what is left expects someone who can manage systems, solve problems and communicate from day one. That shrinks the candidate pool and pushes up the cost of each hire.
There is a second cost. If you stop hiring people with zero to two years of experience, you stop growing your own supervisors, analysts, coordinators and machine operators. In 3 to 5 years you compete for mid-level people on the open market, where they are scarcer and more expensive.
The paper's suggested steps are practical: keep true entry-level roles, match job requirements to the training and supervision you actually provide, protect early-career learning as routine work is automated, and use internships, short-term roles and varied assignments to build foundational skills.
One thing to do this week
Pull up your last three entry-level postings. For each requirement, ask whether you would train it in the first 90 days. If yes, remove it from the must-have list and write it into an onboarding plan with a named supervisor.
Traverse helps Canadian employers find early-career and experienced people across operations, finance, sales, manufacturing and technical roles, and advises on which roles should be hired for potential and which for proven skills.