Government creates record number of job opportunities for youth and students across Canada
Vancouver: Young people were among the hardest hit when the pandemic struck. That is why the Government of Canada continues to make historic investments to ensure that youth have the supports and opportunities they need to build long and successful careers. With that goal in mind came the creation of over 300,000 youth and student jobs since the start of the pandemic and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit, which provided income support for over 700,000 students last summer.
Today, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Carla Qualtrough, met with young people from BGC Canada (formerly Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada) to discuss youth employment and opportunities available through Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) and the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS).
As part of this discussion, Minister Qualtrough highlighted the importance of partners like BGC Canada, who are delivering 123 CSJ projects across the country, creating 1,187 job opportunities for young people this summer. These opportunities will provide young Canadians with a wide range of work experience, including meaningful positions like camp counsellor, camp leader, child and youth worker, and health and safety coordinator, among many others. BGC Canada will also lead two YESS projects that will benefit 90 youth in their skills and employment journeys. Combined, this represents a total federal investment of $7.6 million.
As of August 1, 2021, more than 160,000 CSJ opportunities were made available to young Canadians, across a wide variety of fields, to ensure that youth, particularly those facing barriers, gain the skills and experience needed to successfully transition to the labour market. These jobs can be found on jobbank.gc.ca/youth.
Through Budget 2021, the Government committed nearly $5.7 billion over the next five years to help young Canadians pursue and complete their education, acquire new skills and access more work opportunities. This is on top of the $7.4 billion already invested to support young Canadians during the pandemic. Thousands more young Canadians will be able to benefit from these historic Government investments:
approximately 37,000 new job placements through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy over the next two years;
approximately 220,000 job placements through Canada Summer Jobs over the program’s 2021 and 2022 seasons;
an expected 50,000 work-integrated learning placements through the Student Work Placement Program in 2021–22;
at least 85,000 work-integrated learning placements through Mitacs programs over the next five years, starting in 2021–22; and
28,000 training and work opportunities for young Canadians through the Canada Digital Technology Adoption program in 2021–22.
Taken together, the Government of Canada’s response to the current crisis represents one of the largest youth support packages in the world.