Urban Work Index 2024

Best City for Youth to Work in Canada

Urban Work Index 2024 ranks 30 cities based on youth priorities for ideal living and working. It is the culmination of DEVlab, an investigation to help build dynamic, engaged, and vital workforces in Canada.

Overall Results

Scroll through the list of cities to view the ranking. Discover areas of strength and improvement for each city. Click on any dot on the map to jump to that city.

Results by Topic

Hover over any cell to see the ranking and score for the selected city and topic. Click on a column to sort the ranking by that topic.

A note on scoring

Scores are generated using min/max normalization where the top performing city receives a score of 100 and the lowest performing city receives a score of 0. This means even a city with a score of 100 still has room to improve, and a city with a score of 0 may still perform well in some aspects of the topic.

Adjust the weights of each topic depending on how important each one is to you and watch the ranking change on the heatmap. A weight of 100 represents "extremely important" and a 0 represents "not a priority".

The default weights are based on average importance ratings assigned to each topic based on over 1500 respondents to the "What's up with work lately" survey 2024. These weights influence the proportional contribution of each topic to the final score in determining the Best Work City.

Currently your best city is .

Customize the results

Dig Deeper

Data Stories

The 'Skills and Ladders' series on the Youthful Cities blog explores a few of the most surprising and salient findings from the DEVlab project.

YDL Chatbot

Get deeper insight into the ecosystem of work in Toronto, Montréal, Calgary, and Vancouver by querying the YDL Chatbot. Try the following prompts to or come up with your own using a free account.

  • What do youth in Montréal say about their work/life balance?

  • Assume the role of a young person in Vancouver, what are some of the barriers to finding a good entry-level role?

  • How do challenges around affordability impact the job search of youth in Toronto?

  • What are youth saying about the hiring process in Calgary?