Taryn Leahy has been trying to find a job in Calgary for months and figures she has sent out 160 resumés since she started looking in January. It’s been exhausting, she says, and demoralizing.

She said her dream job would be working in a biology lab as a research assistant, putting the degree she earned at the University of Calgary last winter to good use. At this point, she’d settle for a part-time role as a receptionist, but even finding something like that is proving to be an overwhelming challenge.

“It doesn’t feel too great to not be able to have a job, especially after putting in the effort to get a university degree,” she said. “I feel like I’m not alone, though. I don’t know if that makes it any more comforting, but I’m certainly not alone.”

Gen-Zers

across the country are up against a slump in hiring, but the job hunt is especially discouraging in

Alberta

, where the 15-to-24-year-old crowd is dealing with unusually high levels of unemployment.

The

jobless rate

for this group was the highest in the country for much of the spring, hitting 17.2 per cent in both April and May. Things improved in June, with the rate falling to 16.4 per cent, still the second-highest in Canada, next to Newfoundland and Labrador, Statistics Canada said Friday.

It might be comforting to know other Canadians are also feeling cheated out of a first crack at the workforce. But it doesn’t put cash in Leahy’s pocket, nor does it add crucial lines to her resumé.

Her generation is caught up in a world of paradoxes. Alberta’s economy is expected to be the country’s top performer this year, according to some forecasts, and yet its younger workers are dealing with levels of unemployment they would typically see in a recession.

Outside the pandemic, Alberta’s job market hasn’t been this bad for both men and women under 25 since the downturn of the early 1990s, according to Statistics Canada data.

A mix of political and economic forces are working against them. Gen-Zers across Canada are feeling the effects of United States President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies, Mark Parsons, chief economist at ATB Financial, said.

Employers are not hiring as much, worried the Trump administration could unleash a new round of tariffs at any moment, potentially derailing entire industries or perhaps slowing the global economy and the appetite for Canadian exports, he said.

Entry-level positions are often among the first things to go when companies are reining in costs. Young people disproportionately bear the brunt of those cuts because they’re new and inexperienced.

But this alone doesn’t fully explain why Leahy and people like her can’t find a job. Parsons said young job seekers are also up against a lot more competition.

Alberta remains the top destination for workers who are moving within Canada. These newcomers are

overwhelmingly young families and youth

. They’re likely chasing the allure of more affordable housing, given that most of them are arriving from Ontario and British Columbia,

which are the country’s most expensive housing markets.

“You have young families coming here with their teenage kids or university-aged kids, and then you have a lot of young people coming here because of housing affordability advantages,” Parsons said. “If people are chasing affordability, they might not be coming with a job. They might be coming into the labour market looking for work.”

Companies in Alberta are still hiring young people, with overall employment for Gen Z up slightly in June from a year ago, but businesses are not hiring fast enough to keep pace with the influx of young people into the province.

Leahy said she had thought that having a university degree would give her a leg up when applying for jobs, but she realizes it’s not helping her stand out in an increasingly crowded labour market.

“The biology jobs that I’m looking at usually get 50 applicants a day, so I do look outside my field,” she said. “There’s a lot of admin jobs, but, unfortunately, I’ve only heard back once for an admin position.”

After being ghosted by employers for months, Leahy is slowing down her job search. Maybe she can improve her resumé or dream up a new strategy with some downtime.

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Kate Han, an 18-year-old high school graduate, is feeling equally bummed about her chances of finding work in Alberta’s largest city. She’s been looking for anything that pays — fast food, retail, the Calgary Stampede — but she’s not having any luck.

“There’s no way people are looking at my resumé, especially since I don’t have experience; there’s no chance of me being considered because there are so many applicants for one job,” Han said, adding that some online postings attract hundreds or even thousands of responses.

“It just feels like I’m continuously getting rejected over and over again,” she said.

• Email: rsouthwick@postmedia.com