Increase our investment in the Youth Employment Strategy and improve the strategy's impact.
What success looks like
Increased investment in the Youth Employment Strategy helps more youth succeed in the labour market.
Government's narrative on progress
The government recognizes the importance of good quality jobs for younger workers. Thanks to incremental investments made in the Youth Employment Strategy (YES) in Budgets 2016 and 2017, the government will help more than 33,000 vulnerable youth develop skills to find work or go back to school, create 15,000 new green jobs for young Canadians, and over 1,600 new youth job opportunities in the heritage sector. In Budget 2018, the government proposes to provide an additional $448.5 million over five years, starting in 2018–19, to the YES. This funding will support the continued doubling of the number of job placements funded under the Canada Summer Jobs program in 2019-20 and provide additional resources for a modernized YES in the following years. The government created more opportunities for co-op and work integrated learning for students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and business programs through multiple initiatives. The $73 million Student Work Placement (SWP) Program is creating up to 10,000 placements by 2021. Expanded federal support of $221 million for Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that builds partnerships between industry and educational institutions, will fund over 44,000 placements by 2021-22. To support Canada's National Cyber Security Strategy, Budget 2018 included $8.3 million in additional funding for the Student Work Placement Program to support the creation of up to 1,000 student work placements in the cyber security sector. In the context of the G7, the government also announced an additional investment of $3 million over three years to support the creation of up to 500 new student work placements in the artificial intelligence field, including targeted support for students in underrepresented groups, including women in STEM. Together, these initiatives are creating close to 60,000 placements over five years. In addition, the government invested in the PromoScience program, which will support STEM learning activities for youth. Budget 2019 announced an expansion of the Student Work Placement program to give students outside of STEM – such as the arts, humanities and social sciences - access to work-integrated learning opportunities. Budget 2019 announced investments of $631.2 M over five years, starting in 2019-2020, to support up to 20,000 new work placements per year for post-secondary students across Canada, in all disciplines by 2021-22.This new funding will provide students with hands-on learning opportunities during their studies connecting them to potential employers and creating a talent pipeline for Canadian businesses. In addition, Budget 2019 is committing another $150M over 4 years, starting in 2020-21 to support partnerships with innovative businesses to create up to a further 20,000 work-integrated opportunities per year. To support the Business Higher Education Roundtable in creating an additional 44,000 work-integrated learning opportunities, Budget 2019 also provides the organization with $17M over 3 years starting in 2019-20. Together, these efforts will, over time, help create 84,000 new student work-integrated learning opportunities by 2023-24.
Note: this is the government's own description, not an independent assessment.