File photo of downtown Lethbridge, taken from the top of the Melcor Centre (Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Lethbridge cracks top 20 of index ranking best cities for youth employment

May 11, 2021 | 9:13 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Lethbridge has made the top 20 for the best cities for youth to work in across Canada.

Global initiative Youthful Cities has released its 2021 Urban Work Index, presented by RBC Future Launch.

The Index provides insight into how the country’s urban centres rank for youth and can be viewed here.

It ranks 27 Canadian cities’ performances across 76 urban work indicators spanning 11 topics: City economy, climate change, cost of living, digital access, education and training, entrepreneurial spirit, equity and inclusion, good youth jobs, income generation, public health, and public transportation.

Lethbridge came in at 17^th out of the 27 cities on the list.

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Scores were compiled thanks to publicly available data for a potential top score of 956 points. Larger cities were generally rated as better places to work overall, due to more employment options supported by their size.

Vancouver placed at the top of the list with a score of 623.66.

In second place behind Vancouver was Hamilton with 541.23 points, followed by Edmonton with 538.96 points.

Below is how the 27 cities ranked in the 2021 Urban Work Index, and their point totals:

1) Vancouver, BC (623.66)

2) Hamilton, ON (541.23)

3) Edmonton, AB (538.96)

4) Victoria, BC (538, 38)

5) Montreal, QC (532.22)

6) Calgary, AB (530.47)

7) Ottawa, ON/Gatineau, QC (530.40)

8) Toronto, ON (525.91)

9) Quebec City, QC (503.92)

10) Mississauga, ON (501.05)

11) Halifax, NS (496.42)

12) Kelowna, BC (494.48)

13) Winnipeg, MB (486.21)

14) Kitchener-Waterloo, ON (485.48)

15) Sudbury, ON (481.03)

16) Saskatoon, SK (479.36)

17) Lethbridge, AB (474.13)

18) Brampton, ON (468.84)

19) Laval, QC (466.55)

20) Yellowknife, N.W.T. (461.87)

21) Oshawa, ON (460.16)

22) Regina, SK (458.57)

23) Charlottetown, P.E.I. (446.22)

24) St. John’s, N.L. (434.91)

25) London, ON (434.16)

26) Moncton, NB (411.74)

27) Fredericton, NB (395.27)

The main source of data compilation was the Youthful Cities Pivot Hub, which was launched in March 2020.

The Hub is the culmination of the Pivot 2020, a COVID-19 youth employment project funded by the federal government and led by Youthful Cities, Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and the Canadian Council for Youth Prosperity.

Over 1,200 young people from 27 Canadian cities were employed as urban researchers in the fall of 2020 to collect public data on the cities that were a part of the Index – and concurrently conduct interviews and surveys with more than 3,000 youth (aged 15-29) to inform the measurement of topics and indicators.

Additionally, Youthful Cities partnered with RBC’s Thought Leadership team to structure the new topics and indicators, which resulted in 15,769 total points of data contributing to the 2021 Urban Work Index rankings.