THUNDER BAY – A program intended to help youth find summer employment needs some tweaking, according to Kenora MP Eric Melillo. He says employers in his riding are raising concerns over skewed timelines and long waits for approval for the Canada Summer Jobs program.
Administered through the offices of local members of parliament, the program offers wage subsidies to employers providing summer work experience to youth aged 15 to 30.
Subsidies can be as high as 50 per cent of wages for private and public employers, and up to 100 per cent for non-profit organizations. This year, to encourage hiring during the pandemic, all employers were made eligible for full subsidies.
Melillo said the program plays an important role in his riding.
“I’ve been talking with a lot of business owners and, without this program, their summers would look very different,” he said.
But employers have expressed frustration over long waits for approval and timelines that make planning and hiring difficult, Melillo reported.
Charles Cirtwill, CEO of the Northern Policy Institute (NPI), said the program’s timelines can leave employers missing out on the best candidates, and youth missing the best opportunities.
Applications for the subsidy don’t open until January, he said, with funding approvals announced in May. That leaves many employers scrambling to hire at the last minute, and discourages others from using the program entirely.
“A lot of employers I’ve talked to shy away from the CSJ because it takes a little bit of extra time and they’ve got to fill those jobs,” he said.
“If you think about students in university and college, they’re looking for their summer placements in that January-February window, because they’re looking to start in May,” he said. “This program is really designed around high school graduation in June, with placements starting in July.”
Cirtwill has experienced the issue firsthand, as the Canada Summer Jobs program helps fund some of NPI’s Experience North summer internship positions (Melillo himself interned with the program several years ago).
“We’ve had multiple occasions where we didn’t make job offers pending a decision from Canada Summer Jobs, and by the time we got around to it, that candidate had already taken another job.”
Melillo raised the issue in parliament last week with Employment and Workforce Development Minister Carla Qualtrough, who pledged to consider the feedback.
The first-time MP hopes the government can adjust its timelines in time for next year’s Canada Summer Jobs rollout.
Cirtwill says the change would be a win-win for employers and job-seekers alike.
“This is a really great program that employers should be taking advantage of,” he said. “The timing thing is really an easy fix to make a good program even better.”
