OTTAWA – The Harper government announced a $10 million budget increase to the Canada Summer Jobs program Friday, a bid to encourage employers to hire more students.
The support will help create 3,500 new jobs this summer. This summer 36,000 students will be employed in the program.
“Canadians recognize that skills and experience are essential for success in the workplace,” Labour Minister Diane Finley told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa.
“The experience they gain this summer will result in new opportunities for them in the future.”
The announcement comes as Canada’s unemployment rate dipped to 7.4 per cent, its lowest in more than two years.
Statistics Canada said 22,300 new jobs were created last month, slightly above consensus estimates following April’s strong 58,000 jobs gain.
In May, most of Canada’s employment gains came in the retail and wholesale trade industries, and in information, culture and recreation.
Unemployment for students aged 20 to 24 year-olds remained high at 15 per cent, although it was an improvement from 16.5 per cent a year ago.
“It’s always been harder on that demographic,” said Peter Harris, content manager at Workopolis.
“There’s a large number of students looking for work at the same time so that makes the competition more fierce for the positions that they would value the most.”
Harris said students have the additional challenge of needing experience to get a job.
Still, Stats Can data shows there are some particularly student-friendly sectors.
According to the agency’s labour force survey for May, the top ten occupations employing full-time students aged 15-24 were:
- Retail, including sales clerks, cashiers and retail trade supervisors
- Sales and service occupations, including travel sales
- Chefs, cooks and occupations in the food and beverage service industry
- Clerical occupations, including supervisors
- Jobs unique to the employee’s main industry
- Art, culture, recreation and sport-related occupations
- Natural and applied sciences-related occupations
- Trades, including construction and transportation labourers
- Social science, government service and religion-related occupations
- Health-related jobs, including technical and assisting positions.
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