Liberals vowing to spend $1.5 billion on youth employment

WATCH ABOVE: At a campaign stop in Burnaby, BC, Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau announced that the Liberal government would invest nearly $1.5 billion to jobs and opportunities for young Canadians.

BURNABY, B.C. – The federal Liberals are vowing to spend some 1.5-billion dollars over four years on a youth job strategy that they believe can help some 125-thousand young people find a job.

The plan includes a pledge to spend some 300-million dollars per year for three years on a youth employment strategy, a move the Liberals believe would create 40-thousand jobs annually for three years.

The Grits also want to hire five-thousand young people to work as guides and interpreters at Parks Canada and increase to 35-thousand the number of federally-funded jobs under the Canada Summer Jobs program.

In-Depth: Federal Election 2015

The commitment comes one day after the N-D-P unveiled their own package to deal with unemployment among youth.

The New Democrats say they would set aside 100-million dollars a year for a program intended to create more than 40-thousand youth jobs, paid internships and co-op placements over four years.

The youth unemployment rate sits at 13.1 per cent – almost double the national average – as about 170-thousand fewer young people are in the workforce than before the recession of 2009.