Question Period Note: Employment and Skills Support for Canada’s Youth

How is the Government of Canada supporting youth to gain the skills and experience they need to successfully enter the labour market?

• The Government recognizes that young people are often the first to feel the impact of economic shocks.

• Youth unemployment is on the rise, now at 14.1%, and many youth face affordability challenges. This is why the Government is committed to helping youth get started with their first job and connecting with skills and employment opportunities to launch their professional lives.

• This year, the Government will create over 130,000 employment opportunities for youth and students through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, Canada Summer Jobs, and the Student Work Placement Program.

• In addition, since 2018, more than 52,000 youth have participated in volunteer opportunities funded by the Canada Service Corps, gaining valuable experience, developing transferable skills, and making meaningful contributions to their communities.
• In 2023-2024, the Supports for Student Learning Program reached over 152,000 youth across 194 communities, helping to prevent high school dropouts through targeted supports such as tutoring, mentoring, and scholarships.
• These programs are demonstrating results in helping youth acquire in-demand skills and improve their employment prospects.

• Investing in youth employment and skills development is an investment in Canada’s long-term economic growth and social well-being.

Current Labour Market Outlook for Youth
• Youth unemployment has been increasing since January 2024.
o In May 2025, the unemployment rate for youth (aged 15 to 24) was 14.2%, an increase of 1.40 percentage points from May 2024. In comparison, the unemployment rate for those over the age of 25 was 5.8% in May 2025.
o Youth unemployment is typically double that of core-aged adults however the gap continues to grow as youth face greater difficulties trying to find employment.
• Many young people continue to need support, including those from under-represented groups (e.g., youth with disabilities, Indigenous youth, Black youth, racialized youth). These youth often experience higher rates of unemployment than their peers. For example, in May 2025:
o Black youth (15-24) had an unemployment rate of 22.3%.
o Racialized youth (15-24) had an unemployment rate of 18.0%.
o Indigenous youth (15-24) had an unemployment rate of 18.2%.

• As of 2024, youth with disabilities (15-24) had an unemployment rate of 18.8%, compared to 11.9% for youth without disabilities.
• In 2025, approximately 914,000 youth (aged 15 to 29) are not in employment, education or training (NEET), representing 11.5% of the total youth population aged 15-29. This means that Canada is at risk of leaving 1 in 10 youth behind. From 2023 to 2025, the number of NEET youth (15‑29) increased by 201,800.

• Youth are often the first affected by negative changes in the labour market due to often being the “last in, first out”. Employment for youth is disproportionately concentrated in sectors particularly vulnerable to market volatility such as retail, hospitality, and tourism. The impacts of recessions can have long-lasting effects on the economic prosperity of youth. It took ten years for youth employment rates to rebound following the 2008-09 recession.
• A report published by Deloitte Canada in November 2024 estimates that reducing youth unemployment and underemployment would add $18.5 billion to the Canadian GDP by 2034.
• Youth are also facing socio-economic challenges. Reporting by Statistics Canada indicates that about 30% of 15 to 24 years old reported difficulty making ends meet and that youth are spending more of their income on housing than older age groups. It also indicates that Canadian youth are less satisfied and less hopeful about the future.

2025 Platform Commitments for Youth
• The Government committed in its platform to “Get young Canadians started with their first job by connecting young people with the jobs and skill development opportunities they need to launch their professional lives”:
o Provide funding and expand the mandates, where appropriate, for the SWPP (not costed), the YESS (additional $99M in 2025-2027), CSJ ($311M in 2025-2026), and the CSC (not costed). We will work to better align the mandates with critical and emerging sectors such as green technology, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing. This will increase opportunities within the not-for-profit organizations, the public sector, and private sector organization.
o Establish a Youth Climate Corps (YCC) pilot ($28M in 2025-2026 and an additional $28M in 2026-2027,) which will provide paid skills training for young Canadians to quickly respond to climate emergencies, support recovery, and strengthen resilience in communities across the country. This is our moment to act boldly, prepare for the emergencies we know are coming, and empower the next generation to lead the fight for our future.

Existing Employment and Skills Programs
• The Government has a number of programs that support youth and students gain meaningful skills and employment experience, such as the YESS, which includes CSJ, the SWPP, CSC, and the SSLP.

1) YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS STRATEGY
• The YESS is a horizontal initiative led by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and delivered in partnership with 11 other federal departments, agencies, and Crown corporations. The Strategy supports diverse youth (aged 15 to 30), especially those facing barriers to employment, in accessing opportunities across key sectors through a range of skills development, training, employability, work experience and wrap-around supports.
• Under the YESS, ESDC is responsible for two programs:
o The YESS Program - Provides third party organizations with funding to deliver individually tailored supports and services to equip youth, particularly those furthest from opportunity (e.g., NEET), to succeed on their employment journeys.
o CSJ - Provides wage subsidy supports to employers from not-for-profit organizations, the public sector, and private sector organizations with 50 or fewer full-time employees, to hire youth for local quality summer employment opportunities. CSJ can be a first job experience informing future education, training, and career choices and that provides opportunities to develop and improve their skills.
YESS Program Investment History
• The YESS has benefitted from short-term enhancements since 2019. These led to historic investments during the pandemic, supporting over 35,000 youth to receive employment supports at its peak in 2021-2022.
• Its most recent enhancements were provided under Budget 2024, which allocated an additional $150.7 million to 10 departments to deliver their YESS programs. With this additional investment, the Strategy will support the creation of over 20,000 opportunities in 2025-2026.

YESS Program Results and Impacts
• In 2023-2024, the horizontal YESS Program (including all federal partners) supported over 30,000 opportunities, of which ESDC supported over 18,000 youth.

• The 2023-2024 ESDC YESS Program supported a significant proportion of underrepresented youth. For example:
o 39% identified as a visible minority youth;
o 21% identified as having at least one disability; and
o 14% identified as an Indigenous youth.

• While 2024-2025 results are not in yet, the YESS Program aimed to create approximately 20,000 opportunities – 5,000 through the ESDC YESS Program.
• The 2024 YESS evaluation found that the YESS Program had positive employment outcomes for youth post-participation, compared to non-participants. This includes better wages, lower reliance on income support and higher returns to work.
o Relative to a comparison group, participants in an ESDC YESS Program employment opportunity increased their earnings, on average, by $4,000+ in the first-year post-program and $5,000+ in the second-year post-program.
Current Status of Program Activities
• The 2023 ESDC YESS Program call for proposals (CFP) provided more than 200 organizations with approximately $370 million over four years to help improve labour market outcomes for up to 22,000 youth facing barriers to employment. CFP 2023 included a new stream designed to address the unique barriers to employment encountered by youth with disabilities, with a target of supporting up to 20% of projects under this stream.

• In February 2025, an additional $23 million was announced to support more than 35 additional projects. This brings the total investment in ESDC’s YESS Program to more than $393 million for the period of 2024-2028 and the total number of youth expected to be supported to 23,600.

• Through ESDC’s YESS Program, the Government of Canada is transforming the lives of over 23,600 young people by helping them to overcome barriers to employment and secure meaningful, lasting jobs over the next few years. 
• Most projects have now officially started, while the remainder of projects will continue to start through spring and into the summer.

2) CANADA SUMMER JOBS
CSJ Investment History
• CSJ has benefitted from short-term enhancements since 2019. These led to historic investments during the pandemic, providing over 124,000 youth with employment opportunities at its peak in 2021-2022.

• Its most recent enhancements were provided under Budget 2024, which allocated an additional $200.5 million for CSJ support the creation of over 70,000 youth employment opportunities in 2025-2026.

• On June 6, 2025, the Government announced that up to 6,000 more CSJ opportunities will be available for youth in the coming days. That is on top of the 70,000 jobs already announced, for a total of 76,000 job opportunities for young people.

CSJ Program Results and Outcomes
• Since 2023, CSJ has had a target of supporting 70,000 youth per year. The program delivered over 74,200 opportunities for youth in 2023, over 71,000 youth in 2024, and it is anticipated that the target will be met again in 2025.
• The 2024 YESS evaluation found that CSJ had positive employment outcomes for youth post-participation, compared to non-participants. This includes better wages, lower reliance on income support and higher returns to work.
o On average, 88% of participants were employed in the 2 years following their CSJ placement, representing an increase of 29 percentage points from before to after CSJ participation.
 Employment earning trends for CSJ participants 2 years post-program revealed an average increase of $12,641 between pre- and post-program periods (no control group).

• An Auditor General performance audit of CSJ tabled in December 2024 found that:
o The CSJ program has, year-after-year, successfully facilitated connecting employers with youth seeking summer employment.
o Youth who participated in the program have historically had better long-term outcomes than those who did not participate in the program.
o On average, 16–19-year-olds that participated in CSJ earned approximately $5,900 more than non-participants 9 years after their work experience.

• The audit recommends that ESDC continue to improve its efforts to increase the participation of youth facing barriers in the program, better inform stakeholders on the objectives on the program, and focus its results on outcomes. ESDC has already begun to address the recommendations.

Current Status of Program Activities (CSJ 2025)

• CSJ 2025 was launched on April 21, 2025. CSJ work opportunities are posted on an ongoing basis on Job Bank from April 21 to July 21, 2025. It is anticipated that CSJ 2025 will meet its target of supporting 70,000 opportunities, aligned with CSJ 2023 and 2024 targets.

3) STUDENT WORK PLACEMENT PROGRAM
• SWPP supports partnerships between industry and post-secondary institutions to create quality work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities for students in all disciplines. The Program supports two types of opportunities: paid work placements; and shorter, more intense innovative WIL opportunities (for which students received a stipend in support of their participation).
• SWPP helps post-secondary students to develop work-ready skills, employers to recruit and develop talent, and post-secondary institutions to adapt to changing labour market needs.
• For thousands of Canadian college, university, polytechnic, and CEGEP students, WIL programs help to bring together academic learning and applied work experience. These opportunities can include but are not limited to co-ops, internships, or mentorship programs, as well as other non-traditional experiences like hackathons, boot camps, and micro-internships.
• The Program incentivizes employers to meet a target of 25% of opportunities going to students who have historically lacked access or experienced barriers to participating in WIL opportunities. Under SWPP, these students include women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, newcomers, and visible minorities.
• These students may face intersecting barriers when in the workforce and the post-secondary education system. A study of WIL applications in Ontario found a lack of applicants from diverse groups. Only a third of WIL applicants identified as racialized (32.2%), a quarter (25.1%) identified as women, 9.3% of applicants identified as newcomers to Canada, 4.3% identified having a disability, and a very small minority, 0.2% of WIL applicants, identified as Indigenous (Toronto Metropolitan University, 2021).

Investment History
• Budget 2024 proposed $207.6 million in 2025-2026 for the SWPP to create more WIL opportunities for post-secondary students.
• In 2025-2026, the Program is targeting the creation of approximately 40,000 WIL opportunities for post-secondary students across various in-demand sectors.
• These opportunities help students gain the necessary skills, education, and real-life work experience to transition successfully into the workforce.

Program Results
• Since 2017, the Program supported close to 250,000 WIL opportunities for post-secondary students across all provinces and territories as well as in the majority of sectors of the Canadian economy. This total includes over 160,000 work placements and close to 90,000 innovative WIL opportunities.
• Over 29,000 employers (92% small and medium size enterprises) and 380 post-secondary institutions (87% of institutions nationwide) are participating in the program.

Current Status of Program Activities

Funding for 2025-2026 has been fully committed. The 26 agreements (24 funding recipients) have been extended to support the delivery of 40,000 WIL opportunities starting in the Summer 2025 academic semester.

4) CANADA SERVICE CORPS

• CSC promotes civic engagement among young people aged 12-30 (particularly Indigenous and under-served youth) through access to meaningful volunteer service opportunities. CSC-funded organizations offer service placement opportunities and also disburse micro-grants for youth-led service initiatives. These interventions allow youth to practice leadership, grow their personal and professional networks and gain important skills and experience.

Investment History
• The planned total contribution funding includes:
o $68.5 million in 2024-2025;
o $82.9 million in 2025-2026; and,
o $83.5 million per year in ongoing funding beginning in 2026-2027.

Program Outcomes
• Since April 2018, CSC has funded over 200 projects across the country creating over 52,000 service opportunities for youth. This represents over 41,000 service placements which have contributed about 5 million service hours to their communities as well as over 10,800 micro-grant projects that support the implementation of small-scale, innovative community service ideas across the country. With close to 90 new projects underway as of 2024-2025, thousands more service opportunities are expected over the next two years.

• In 2023-2024, over three quarters of all participants indicated that they came from Indigenous or under-served populations.

Current Status of Program Activities
• The 2023 ESDC CSC CFP is funding 89 projects across the country supporting young volunteers through service placements and micro-grants. These projects will remain in place until March 2027.
• This is in addition to 29 projects already underway through the diversity micro-grants stream which funds diverse-led organizations delivering micro-grants within their communities and the accelerator micro-grants stream which supports CSC alumni youth. These projects will also end by March 2027.

5) SUPPORTS FOR STUDENT LEARNING PROGRAM
• The SSLP funds youth-serving organizations to help youth stay in school and access post-secondary training and lifelong learning, through tailored services such as tutoring, mentoring and scholarships.

• Services are provided outside of school, through a network of high-functioning, community, regional and national service delivery points by expert youth-serving organizations.

• The SSLP’s funded services are targeted to youth populations most likely to drop-out of school or become NEET, offering the greatest return on investment.

Investment History
• Through Budget 2024, the Government committed $67.5 million over three years (2024-2025 to 2026-2027) for the SSLP.

• The Program’s funding is grounded in the success of longstanding investments in Pathways to Education and Indspire, among others.

Program Outcomes
• The SSLP’s student supports reached over 152,000 students in 194 local communities across Canada in 2023-2024, with proven results in better academic outcomes, improved skills, higher graduation and post-secondary enrolment, and reduced reliance on social services.

• SSLP participants have reported a 25% increase in intentions to continue their education after participating in SSLP-funded programming (72% pre-programming to 97% post-programming).

Current Status of Program Activities
• The SSLP launched a suite of new projects this year (2025-2026), that will run for two years (until March 2027). Current projects include Pathways to Education, Indspire, YMCA, Stepstones for Youth, and Success Beyond Limits.
• These expert youth-serving organizations offer ‘afterschool’ and financial supports. They reach students in dozens of local communities across Canada, tailoring their services for youth who need it most, to help them succeed in school and into the labour market.

Youth and the Green Economy / Youth Climate Corps

• ESDC undertook early engagement with youth and youth serving organizations to inform the design of a YCC in late 2024 (as per Budget 2024 commitment).
• The Department will continue to work in collaboration with other Departments and partners on approaches to implement the 2025 commitment to support youth in developing valuable work-related skills in natural disaster and emergency relief situations.
• The YESS also delivers multiple programs for youth in the green economy, including the Science Horizons Youth Internship Program (Environment and Climate Change Canada); the Science and Technology Internship Program (Natural Resources Canada); and the Parks Canada YESS Program which provides young people with paid summer employment at national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas across the country.