Question Period Note: Youth Employment and Skills Funding History

How has the Government invested in skills and employment supports for young Canadians?

•Youth were hardest hit during the pandemic with the highest rate of unemployment.
•Good jobs open a world of possibilities for a better future – to help youth save to pay for school, to afford rent and housing and launch successful career paths.
•That is why the Government responded with historic investments, significantly increasing supports for youth and student employment and skills programs. This helped to alleviate negative impacts the pandemic would have on youth employment.
•The Government is on track to deliver on its mandate commitment to continue scaling up youth and student skills and employment programming.
•In 2019-2020, the Government created 113,000 opportunities through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program, Canada Summer Jobs and the Student Work Placement Program. In 2023-2024, these programs combined will create 130,000 opportunities for youth and students.
•In addition, the Government committed $22M annually via Budget 2016 and $70.8M annually via Budget 2019 for the Canada Service Corps to support the creation of volunteer service opportunities for youth. Since 2018, over 30,000 youth have taken part in Canada Service Corps funded volunteer opportunities, enabling them to gain experiences and skills.

Investment
•The 2023 Fall Economic Statement did not announce any additional funding for youth employment and skills training.

Student Work Placement (SWP) Program
•Budget 2023 provides $197.7 million in 2024-2025 to the Student Work Placement (SWP) Program to continue creating quality work-integrated learning opportunities for students through partnerships between employers and post-secondary education institutions.
•In 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, the Program will support the creation of 40,000 work-integrated learning opportunities per year across various sectors nationwide.

Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS) Program
•Since the beginning of the pandemic, several time-limited investments were made to ensure young people were not left behind. These included:
o June 2020: $187 million in additional funding for the YESS to create 9,500 additional work opportunities in 2020-2021 for young Canadians in critical and high-demand sectors (e.g., health, community services, and information technology);
o 2020 Fall Economic Statement: $575.3 million to create 45,300 job placements in 2021-22 and 2022-23; and,
o Budget 2021: $109.3 million in 2022-2023 for YESSP (excluding ESDC and GAC), to create an additional 7,000 youth job placements and supports, and $371.8 million for 2022-2023 to create an additional 75,000 CSJ jobs in summer 2022.
•The 2022 Fall Economic Statement allocated $802.1 million over 3 years starting in 2022-23 for the YESS, including:
o $301.4 million over two years, starting in 2023-24, through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program;
o $400.5 million over two years, starting in 2023-24, to Canada Summer Jobs to support a total of approximately 70,000 annual summer job placements; and,
o $100.2 million over three years, starting in 2022-23, to continue supporting work placements for First Nations youth through the Income Assistance-First Nations Youth Employment Strategy Pilot.

Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ)
•Budget 2021 provided $371.8 million for 2022-2023 to create an additional 75,000 jobs for a total of 220,000 jobs over 2021-2022 and 2022-2023.
•Additional recent investments, included:
o 2020 Fall Economic Statement to support up to 120,000 job placements in 2021-2022; and,
o 10,000 additional job placements for youth added with an investment of $61.4M in 2020-2021.
•The 2022 Fall Economic Statement allocated $400.5 million over two years, starting in 2023-24, to Canada Summer Jobs to support approximately 70,000 annual summer job placements.

Canada Service Corps (CSC)
•Budget 2016 provided $105 million over five years and $25 million per year thereafter ($22 million of which is contribution funding) with a vision of enabling youth to become active citizens and contribute to a culture of youth service in Canada.
•Budget 2019 allocated an additional $314.8 million over five years to the CSC program starting in 2019–2020, with $83.8 million per year in ongoing funding ($70.8 million of which is contribution funding).

Results

SWP Program
•Launched in 2017-2018 as a small-scale pilot to better prepare post-secondary students for the world of work, the SWP Program has grown from offering 10,000 work-integrated learning opportunities over four years, to its recent high of 50,000 during the pandemic in 2021-2022.
•To date, the Program has consistently exceeded targets to support the creation of over 190,000 opportunities for post-secondary students across all provinces and territories .

YESS
•The YESS program, delivered across 12 federal departments, agencies and Crown corporations, aims to ensure that young people (aged 15-30), particularly those facing barriers to employment, gain the skills and work experience they need to make a successful transition into the labour market.
•In fiscal year 2021-2022, the horizontal YESS Program (including all federal partners) supported over 41,300 youth, of which ESDC’s program supported over 23,500 youth.
•In fiscal year 2022-2023 the horizontal YESS Program (including all federal partners) supported over 26,200 opportunities, of which ESDC’s program supported over 17,200 youth, with the following results:
o 38.76% identified as a visible minority youth, almost meeting the program’s target of 40%;
o 25.27% identified as having at least one disability, meeting the program’s target of 25%; and
o 17.59% identified as an Indigenous youth, almost meeting the program’s target of 20%.
•In 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, the YESS Program will aim to create approximately 20,000 opportunities annually. Of that, ESDC’s YESS Program will support about 5,000 opportunities per year.

CSJ
•For CSJ 2022, the program surpassed its target of creating 100,000 jobs with more than 115,000 CSJ placements created.
•CSJ 2023 is on track to surpass its target of 70,000 opportunities. Final results will be available early in the new year.
•CSJ 2024 is aiming to provide 70,000 opportunities.

CSC
•Since April 2018, CSC has funded over 200 projects across the country, creating more than 30,000 volunteer service opportunities for youth. This represents over 24,000 service placements which have contributed about 2.8M service hours to their communities as well as over 6,600 micro-grant projects that support the implementation of small-scale, innovative community service ideas across the country.

BACKGROUND:

SWP Program
•The SWP Program supports partnerships for the creation of work-integrated learning opportunities for students of all ages enrolled in any post-secondary education program at a college, university or polytechnic in Canada.
•The SWP Program 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.
•Work-integrated learning opportunities help post-secondary students to bring together academic learning and applied work experience. This can include, but are not limited to co-ops, internships, and mentorship programs, as well as shorter duration opportunities such as hackathons and micro-internships.

YESS
•The YESS is a horizontal initiative that is delivered by 12 federal government departments, agencies and Crown Corporations to support the successful transition of youth into the labour market through access to skills, training, employment opportunities and wrap-around supports, with a focus on under-represented youth facing barriers. The Strategy, which consists of two program streams - the YESS Program and Canada Summer Jobs. As a horizontal initiative the YESS enables the federal Government to:
o Serve a much broader range of youth, across regions and sectors, including youth with disabilities and youth experiencing multiple barriers;
o Address priorities with centralized funding decision, integrated results monitoring, evaluation, and financial accountability;
o Foster collaboration, innovation and program complementarity;
o Leverage expertise of departments and organizations across various sectors (e.g., STEM, culture); and
o Provide a cohesive response to emerging issues and labour market evidence impacting youth.

CSJ
•The CSJ, delivered solely by ESDC, provides wage subsidies to employers from not-for-profit organizations, the public-sector, and private sector organizations with 50 or fewer full-time employees, to create quality summer work experiences (from April to August) for young people aged 15 to 30 years.

CSC
Canada Service Corps (CSC) funds youth-led organizations to create, promote, and facilitate access to meaningful volunteer service opportunities for youth aged 12 to 30, particularly Indigenous and under-served youth. 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 gains important skills and experiences.

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