Rob Carrick’s recent columns in the Globe and Mail discuss how Canadian young adults may be getting a “raw deal” in today’s economy. Carrick discussed the interplay between the minimum wage, tuition fees and high unemployment facing Canadian Millennials today.  In Monday’s article he explained how house price gains in excess of inflation  make it harder for new buyers to get into the market.

Citing the Canadian Real Estate Association if house prices had kept up with inflation since the 1980’s the average house in Canada would cost $154, 587, where in April this year the actual average cost of a home was $397, 677. And while in the 1980s the cost of a house might have been 1.6 times a family’s annual income it is now a multiple around 6 times the annual income.

This leads us to consider, will this have a lasting effect on the Canadian Millennials? According to a recent study we found that many young Canadians hold home ownership high on their list of priorities. Our November 2011 National Survey asked Millennials to rank a list of seven top priorities. On average, Canadians across generations and including Millennials, hold owning their own home among their top three priorities.

Abacus Data National Survey, November 2011

While owning a home remains a high priority for members of the Great Generation, Millennials are on par with Gen X and Baby Boomers when it comes to owning a home, ranking as the third priority across these demographic groups, on average.

As of last fall 23% of Millennials reported that they owned their own home or condo, 48% reported that they were renting an apartment and 29% of Millennials aged 18 and older were still living with their parents or family members, rent free.

In his recent book, How Not to Move Back in With Your Parents, Rob Carrick discusses the difficult decision Millennials will face when trying to balance debt and home ownership.

More Canadians – especially Gen Y, or Millennials – are grabbing breakfast on the go, according to research from The NPD Group Inc.

People aged 19-35 skip the family kitchen at breakfast and rely on quick-service-restaurants (QSRs) like McDonald’s and Tim Hortons to kick start their days.

It’s part of a larger trend: Six years ago, breakfast was the #1 skipped meal in Canada, according to Robert Carter, executive director of foodservice at The NPD Group.

Now it’s lunch. The average Canadian skips lunch 44 times a year.

Millennials are the group driving the growth in breakfast sales and they are likely to fuel it for years to come. Within the next five years, breakfast servings are expected to increase by more than 11-million among Millennials, says Carter.

The catch is that they will be looking for healthy breakfast options.

“Right now convenience is king, but as the Millennial population ages, the levels of concern regarding food and nutrition are expected to rise,” according to Carter.

He predicts a rise in demand for breakfast items that are lower in calories and can be eaten on the run.

The breakfast trend has fueled a 14 per cent increase in QSR breakfast sales in the past year, according to the study, A Look into the Future of Foodservice.

The survey also found that while breakfast cheques at restaurants have increased, supper cheques have dropped.

“If you go out to breakfast, there’s a good chance you won’t go out at supper,” says Carter. “People are managing their spend.”

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The Ottawa Citizen recently published an article about the intergenerational strife around the politics and economics of working and earning, specifically identifying a separation between the Boomers and the Millennial generation.

This article aimed to define the inherent differences seen by these two generations as they enter the world of work, “Over the last 40 years, real wages stagnated, while housing prices and the cost of living increased; the average family has more debt than ever…” additionally, Foster explains, when each generation entered the work force they did so “in the context of fundamentally different social welfare states.”

This article made me question whether Canada’s changing economic reality will have a real effect on the way Millennials act within the employment market as they enter the work force, compared to older generations.

Our 2011 Millennial survey found that the top three employment priorities were the same for Millennials and Boomers in Canada. When it comes to the workplace, both generations most highly value Money, Security and the “Team.”

When asked to choose from a list of motivations Boomers prioritize employment security above all, for them to know that they will work there a long time is most important. Money, getting paid a high salary that lets you do the things you want outside of work, was their second highest priority. Finally, the Team, the atmosphere created by the people they work with is the third most important motivation for Boomers at work on average

Millennials held  the same top three priorities, but on average getting paid a high salary was the most important. This difference may be the result of life cycle effects, as most Millennials only just starting out on their careers are concerned with salary increase where most Boomers are happy to stay where they are. However, even despite life cycle effects we can see the similarities between Boomer and Millennial priorities at work.

The Citizen article supposed that “the changing structure and impact of class is tied to how we redistribute wealth in this country.” While we may be affected in the long-term by changing economic realities it seems that for now, as Millennials continue to enter the work-force our priorities remain similar to that of older generations.

About 100,000 people left Ontario between 2003 and 2010 and about half of them are young people, he says. The rates of interprovincial migration are five to 10 times higher for people between 20 and 30 than for people who are 40 to 50.

Migration is also extremely susceptible to unemployment rate, notes a 2008 StatsCan report. As the unemployment rate rises 1 percentage point, the probability of migration increases 10 per cent.

So young people are headed to Alberta and Saskatchewan, both provinces with lower youth unemployment rates than the national 14.7 per cent.

Calgary has the most favourable hiring forecast for April to June in the country, followed by Red Deer, Alta., and Richmond-Delta, B.C., according to employers polled for the manpower unemployment outlook survey.

While the survey didn’t look at the migration of young workers, there is a trend of skilled and semi-skilled workers who are under-30 making the move to Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces, says Janis Sugar, director of marketing for Manpower Canada.

In a recent Toronto Star article Alyshah Hasham began to articulate the fears of some Canadian Millennials in the face of our current economic climate. The article discusses the difficult choice we have to make when we think about  “buying a home and starting a family” and “saving for retirement,” in this climate of unemployment with a jobless rate of 14.5%

We will gradually be exposed to the effect that long-term unemployment will have on my generation. But for now we should consider this generation’s current priorities; do we want a house or family?

Our most recent study of Millennial adults (18 – 30) has found that for most Millennials, a successful marriage or relationship and having a successful career are high on their priority list (78% of Millennials rank having a successful marriage among their top three priorities, and 59% rank having a successful career among their top three.) Around four in ten Millennials (39%) rank owning a home near the top of their priorities list. Comparatively, 37% ranked “having free time to relax” as a top priority.

It is possible that we have shifted our expectations based on the economic climate and realigned them to place more emphasis on personal and professional goals. Either way, for now, Millennials are about as interested in buying a home as they are in having enough time to sit back and catch the game on Saturday night.

Nearly one-quarter (23%) of the Millennials we surveyed currently own their own home or condo, compared to three-quarters (75%) of Non-Millennials who currently own a home. While sixty-five percent of Millennials would ultimately like to live outside of the city some day, but for now, many of us (45%) prioritize living within walking distance to services.

As far as we can tell, saving up for a house, starting a family, or for that matter saving for retirement are not really on the radar at all for most Millennials. Of course the same life cycle effects that will influence the behaviour of all generations will still come in to play for the Millennials, and we can already see this happening, as almost a quarter of Millennial adults already owns a home. However, as we enter the workforce during an economic downturn, Millennials should expect a delay before getting the jobs they desire and our research shows that Millennials may be even further delayed before making these choices.

Millennials prioritize their current lifestyle rather than considering what is on the horizon. It seems that planning for retirement probably won’t be top of mind for a while. Right now Millennials want to get a job so that they can move out of their parent’s house or buy a new phone.

Toronto Star

“Set the bar low,” is the advice Ron Sly would give himself a year and a half ago, when he started looking for work in Toronto.

But back then it was a city of opportunity, where he’d get a stable job and become upwardly mobile.

Instead the 26-year-old, armed with a useless B.Sc. in biology, spent months job-hunting while working at a bar.

“I couldn’t go back to school, I couldn’t take on any more debt,” he said. For the last year he’s worked on short-term contract as communications coordinator at First Work, a not-for-profit organization helping youth find employment.

He likes his job, but it would be nice to live like you know where next month’s rent is coming from.

“There is still the stress of being unsure about the future. There just isn’t the stability and job security that was enjoyed by previous generations. That is for me the biggest let down.”

Sly is part what could become a “lost generation,” says TD economist Francis Fong. “There is the threat of it taking half a decade to a decade or even longer to get these people back to where they should have been had they been the same age in an economic boom year.”

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The survey found that compared to other generations, they are more than twice as likely to give personal information, nearly half as likely to ask if a charity is registered, and less than half as likely to ask for a solicitor’s identification. This relaxed attitude might explain why only 19% of millennials are very concerned about falling victim to a fraudster compared to 27% for other age groups.

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