Question Period Note: ESDC Funding Overview

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

•Youth are the leaders of today and tomorrow. The Government has shown its commitment to their success through action taken.
•In 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, the Government will create over 260,000 opportunities through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program, Canada Summer Jobs and the Student Work Placement Program.
•Budget 2024 committed $558.8 million in additional funding for these programs in 2025-2026, maintaining the same level of support for youth as the past two years.
•Through this announcement, youth and students will continue to gain skills and work experience to help them launch their careers.
•In addition, since 2018, over 40,000 youth have taken part in Canada Service Corps funded volunteer opportunities. This enables them to gain experiences and skills and to make a significant impact in our communities.

Investment
Student Work Placement (SWP) Program

•Budget 2024 proposed $207.6 million in 2025-2026 for the Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) to create more work-integrated learning opportunities for post-secondary students.
•Budget 2023 invested $197.7 million in 2024-2025 to SWPP to continue creating quality work-integrated learning opportunities for students through partnerships between employers and post-secondary education institutions.
•The Program will support the creation of 40,000 work-integrated learning opportunities per year until 2025-2026 across various sectors nationwide.

Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS)
•The Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS) consists of two program streams, the YESS Program and Canada Summer Jobs.
•Budget 2024 proposed $351.2 million in funding to help create 90,000 youth job placements and employment support through the overall YESS. These investments include:
o $200.5 million in 2025-2026, for Canada Summer Jobs to provide well paying summer job opportunities, including in sectors facing critical labour shortages, such as housing construction; and,
o $150.7 million in 2025-2026, for the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program to provide job placements and employment supports to youth.
•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 2023-2024, through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program;
o $400.5 million over two years, starting in 2023-2024, 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 2022-2023, to continue supporting work placements for First Nations youth through the Income Assistance-First Nations Youth Employment Strategy Pilot.

Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS) Program
•During the pandemic, several time-limited investments were made to ensure young people were not left behind. These included:
o June 2020: $187.7 million in additional funding for the YESS Program 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 2021-2022 and 2022-2023; and,
o Budget 2021: $109.3 million in 2022-2023 for YESS Program (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.

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 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 $61.7M in 2020-2021.

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 SWPP 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.
•Between 2017-2018 and 2022-2023, 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 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 aims to create approximately 20,000 opportunities annually. Of that, ESDC’s YESS Program will support about 5,000 opportunities per year.
•It is anticipated that additional funding proposed in Budget 2024 will allow the YESS Program to maintain support for approximately 20,000 opportunities annually in 2025-26.

CSJ
•For CSJ 2022, the program surpassed its target of creating 100,000 jobs with more than 115,000 CSJ placements created.
•CSJ 2023 has surpassed its target of 70,000 opportunities, by supporting over 74,200 youth.
•CSJ 2024 is once again aiming to provide at least 70,000 opportunities.
•It is anticipated that funding proposed in Budget 2024 will allow CSJ 2025 to maintain its target of supporting 70,000 opportunities per year, in line with targets for CSJ 2023 and CSJ 2024.

CSC
•Since April 2018, CSC has funded over 200 projects across the country, creating over 40,000 volunteer service opportunities for youth. This represents over 32,000 service placements which have contributed about 3.9 million service hours to their communities as well as over 7,400 micro-grant projects that support the implementation of small-scale, innovative community service ideas across the country.

BACKGROUND:

SWP Program
•The SWPP 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 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.
•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
•CSJ, delivered solely by ESDC, supports employers to create quality summer jobs for youth in not-for-profit, public and private sectors. It includes a focus on small businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees.

CSC
•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 experiences.
 

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