Key Takeaways
- Trades certificate or diploma holders had the highest permanent full-time employment rate in 2025, at 71%.
- Bachelor's graduates earned the highest average hourly wage, $39.18, versus $34.71 for trades graduates.
- Women with degrees earned 92 cents per dollar earned by men, while mothers of young children had lower permanent employment rates.
The most secure job in the room may not need a degree
A trades certificate now beats a bachelor's degree on one measure young Canadians care about most: landing a permanent, full-time job.
Statistics Canada's new study in Insights on Canadian Society, "How are young Canadian university graduates faring in the recent labour market?", uses Labour Force Survey data on non-students aged 25 to 34 in 2025. It found 71% of trades certificate or diploma holders were in permanent full-time work — the highest rate of any education level — edging out bachelor's degree holders at 69%. High school graduates sat at 56%, and those without a diploma at 43%.
The university number is also drifting down: degree holders held permanent full-time jobs at a rate of 71% in 2022, and their 69% in 2025, while still above the pre-pandemic average of 65%, shows the squeeze on young graduates.
Pay still tells a different story
Job security is only half the ledger. Average hourly wages in 2025 still rose with education: $39.18 for bachelor's degree holders, $34.71 for trades graduates, $31.39 for college and CEGEP graduates, $28.77 for high school graduates and $26.97 for those without a diploma. The degree premium is real — roughly $4.50 an hour over the trades — even if a trades credential is marginally better at delivering a permanent position.
The gaps that won't move
Among degree holders, 72% of men were in permanent full-time work versus 66% of women, and women earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by men — a gap the study notes has remained largely unchanged since 1997.
Parenthood splits the numbers further. Female graduates with a child aged six or younger were in permanent full-time jobs at 62%, compared with 67% of women without young children. No comparable gap appeared for men. On benefits, employer pension coverage reached 60% among women and 56% among men.
The Twikup Take
The old advice — get a degree, get security — needs an update. In 2025 the surest route to a permanent full-time job ran through the trades, while the surest route to the highest hourly pay still ran through a university. Neither path is broken; they now pay off in different currencies. The stubborn finding is the one that hasn't moved in nearly three decades: the 92-cent gap.
Photo: A welder at work, cutting metal with a torch by Chetan Menaria, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.