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Dan Gemmell was relieved when his 18-year-old son graduated high school recently and decided to continue with his education.

As a director at Alberta's Apprenticeship and Industry Training Board, Mr. Gemmell sees lots of young people wooed away from post-secondary education into high-paying jobs, taking advantage of the current bonanza in hiring throughout the oil-rich province.

"There's lots of opportunities for him with employment," he said. "I'm sure he'll be tempted a number of times."

With youth unemployment across the country at its lowest point since 1974, the tables have turned in the dance between job seekers and employers. Young people now have the upper hand when it comes to choosing when they will enter the work force.

According to the latest Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate for Canadians aged 15 to 24 dropped to a low of 10.6 per cent in July, a decline of 1.3 percentage points from July 2006 and the lowest rate since September 1989.

Employment rates for youths have increased in each province in the past year, with the exception of Ontario.

So far in 2007, job growth for youths has been higher than that of both adult women and men.

But while this may be good news for young people looking to earn some money, many fear that the temptation to take a well-paying job will lure them away from school or training programs.

"We're going to have a whole generation of youth that go out and work in jobs where they're not gaining any form of credential or certificate," said Mr. Gemmell. "Employers are demanding skilled workers and we're telling them that they have to train skilled workers, that they don't grow on trees. They'll probably have to go back to school later."

That's what Jerry Stilson's son chose to do.

The former youth counsellor works as a career coach at a Calgary-based human resources company, Cenera, and watched his son struggle for years with the pull between money and education.

His son opted out of attending university or college to work construction in the oil patch but has now decided to use some of his earnings to return to school.

"He's finally learned, 'Geez, I don't want to do this the rest of my life,' " said Mr. Stilson.

"You see a lot of kids jumping at the money and, short term, it's wonderful. Long term, it's devastating."

This is still being demonstrated in the after-effects of Alberta's last economic boom in the late 1970s.

Mr. Stilson regularly sees clients who dropped out of school then and find themselves struggling for work 30 years later.

"They come in here and they have absolutely no skills other than labour," he said. "Re-employment is really difficult for them, even in this marketplace."

To prevent this fate from afflicting today's young and über-employable, some companies have made a commitment not to hire workers that don't finish a specific level of schooling.

Kara Flynn, spokesperson for Syncrude, an oil-sands operator in Fort McMurray, said corporate policy prevents the hire of anyone without a grade 12 diploma or GED equivalent.

Even still, the company received 44,000 job applications last year for 744 openings.

Some believe rising employment rates among young people signals a trend toward more education, not less.

Jim Carr, president of the Business Council of Manitoba, said the rise in youth employment rates in his province could perhaps be attributed to higher graduation rates, especially among aboriginal youth.

"Part of it could be explained by more and more young aboriginals being graduated, both from high school and university, in record numbers," said Mr. Carr. "That was historically an area of underemployment."

Nima Dorjee, director of the internship program at the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary, also sees rising employment rates as a positive development, saying his students are being recruited early on in their degrees and receiving multiple offers by the time they graduate.

But rather than rushing into employment, he sees many young people taking their time when selecting a job and embracing the freedom offered through such abundance of opportunity.

"They're more confident. Some are not even accepting early offers," he said. "And students are much pickier about where they choose to apply."

Having choices while they're young will hopefully result in consistent employment throughout their lives, he said.

"When they do choose a position," he said, "my hope is that they'll be much more successful because they're happier."