Statistics Canada says there is “no broad evidence” that the rise of AI has substantially reduced hiring or increased job separation rates across Canada, including for young workers, since ChatGPT’s public launch in November 2022.
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Statistics Canada has found “no broad evidence” that the rise of artificial intelligence has led to substantial decreases in hiring or increases in job separation rates across Canada since November 2022, when ChatGPT was publicly launched.
In the agency’s study, published last week, researchers said those patterns also held for younger workers and for jobs Statistics Canada identified as potentially more susceptible to AI substitution, such as data-entry clerks and computer-coding-intensive occupations.
The study examined labour force survey data for workers aged 15 to 64 in Canada from January 2006 to August 2026. It classified jobs based on potential exposure to AI and on whether AI could complement or substitute for human tasks.
Tahsin Mehdi, a senior research economist at Statistics Canada and a co-author of the study, said AI is reshaping workflows and redefining jobs, but that it may not yet be eliminating entire roles.
Statistics Canada said hiring rates and job separation rates—covering both voluntary and involuntary employment endings, including layoffs—were used because they can act as early signals of shifts in the labour market tied to factors such as economic conditions and technology disruptions.
When comparing the six months before November 2022 with the six months ahead of August 2026, Statistics Canada said hiring and job separation rates were “generally within historical ranges or represented a continuation of pre-existing trends.”
Mehdi said the data also showed a decline in hiring for young workers across industries, including roles generally viewed as less exposed to AI. For example, Statistics Canada reported that in jobs with low exposure to AI, the hiring rate for people aged 15 to 29 decreased from 4 per cent to 3.3 per cent over that period.
The agency said hiring for youth in jobs it classified as more vulnerable to AI substitution edged down more modestly, from 3.2 per cent to 3.0 per cent.
Mehdi cautioned that other forces are also affecting youth hiring, including trade dynamics, U.S. tariffs, immigration shocks and rapid population growth.
The study also reported that hiring rates in coding-intensive jobs fell from 2.5 per cent to 1.9 per cent in the 2022-to-2026 window, while Mehdi said hiring in that field rose above 5 per cent around 2020 and 2021, noting that firms may have adjusted hiring during the pandemic.
The research further indicated that employment growth for younger workers has been relatively weak in the post-pandemic period regardless of their jobs’ potential exposure to AI, with Mehdi saying youth may still be feeling aftershocks from the pandemic.
Even with those findings, the study was described as arriving amid continuing anxiety about AI’s potential impact on jobs. Viet Vu, manager of economic research at The Dais, said he was not surprised by Statistics Canada’s results and argued that there is still not enough evidence to detect AI’s labour-market effects in Canada.
Vu said fear can arise because AI may affect every sector and is changing faster than labour markets are accustomed to, adding that young people may be especially concerned about the “fundamental social contract of work,” where people typically build experience after school and translate it into their first job and future employment.
He said studies like the one from Statistics Canada can help reduce immediate fear, but that they do not resolve broader unease about what the future could bring.
In its conclusions, Statistics Canada said the insights represent early findings and that as AI adoption accelerates, it will be essential to continue monitoring labour market trends to better understand how technology changes the economy—and for whom.
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