MONTREAL -- In another effect of the pandemic on young people, a crucial building block in many professions is in trouble: co-op programs.

Claude Martel of the Concordia University Co-op Institute explains that co-op jobs are unique in their ability to help students get established -- students get the chance to prove themselves and often graduate with a couple of job offers in their pocket.

But the pandemic has made it harder to place Concordia students in co-op jobs, which could narrow the students' options that much more when they venture post-graduation into a historically bad economy.

He has a message to companies: consider taking on a co-op student, despite the strange circumstances.

Watch Martel explain the situation in the video above.