Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the finance committee today to discuss youth employment in Canada. CYBF is a national, non-profit organization established in 1996 to help young Canadian entrepreneurs launch successful businesses.
We have a proven track record of advancing economic growth by supporting and encouraging Canada's emerging entrepreneurs as they create, build, and sustain their own businesses and as they develop entrepreneurial skills that will help them in whatever career path they may choose. We provide pre-launch coaching, business resources, start-up financing, and mentoring to young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 39 to help them launch and sustain successful businesses. CYBF has seven regional offices located in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Atlantic, and we work with young entrepreneurs and more than 200 community partners in more than 1,400 communities across Canada.
Since CYBF's inception, we've invested in 6,300 Canadian entrepreneurs and engaged more than 3,000 volunteer mentors to assist them. The businesses the young entrepreneurs have launched have created 25,991 jobs and over $184 million in tax revenue. The federal government has been a key partner in investing in these entrepreneurs, and we are pleased that the 2013 budget committed $18 million over two years to help CYBF continue to help more young entrepreneurs achieve their dream of launching their own business, through access to funds, mentoring, and business resources.
We are also actively working with our corporate partners to do their part in helping to assist in the growth and support of young entrepreneurs across Canada. While we're seeing growth in the number of entrepreneurs we serve, we are currently helping about 2% to 3% of the potential youth entrepreneur market. CYBF recently extended our offering to non-profits and students in their last year of study.
Youth unemployment is a big challenge. It sits at about 15% to 16%, which is twice the national average. A recent TD Economics report told us to expect $10.7 billion in earnings loss due to youth unemployment. Canada is also facing a huge challenge in the expected retirement of 66% of our small business owners by 2016, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Youth entrepreneurship is helping young people find meaningful work and is also helping young people to realize their dreams. Doing so helps them create jobs for themselves and others, and they create the healthy government revenues we need to deal with other social needs.
CYBF has held 10 round tables across Canada since January 22 of this year. Action Entrepreneurship: Growing Young Enterprise is an entrepreneurship-led initiative that connects young entrepreneurs with government, not-for-profits, academia, business leaders, policy-makers, and other stakeholders. About half of those in attendance are young entrepreneurs who gather to discuss promising opportunities and collective actions to better support youth entrepreneurship in Canada.
Some of the challenges we've heard about include not being aware early enough that entrepreneurship is a viable career option, weak financial literacy skills, and difficulty in accessing start-up financing.
Some of the opportunities we heard about include the following. Educators should utilize experiential approaches such as entrepreneurial-based co-ops; financial literacy skills should be taught earlier as part of life skills in kindergarten to grade 12; and the federal government should create and promote a national one-stop shop or other centralized, user-friendly resource for the entrepreneurial community.
This is just a snapshot of what we've been hearing. We are also planning to host a round table in Yellowknife in April. Findings from each round table will be used to draft an action plan that prioritizes issues and incorporates tangible steps for each stakeholder group to collectively strengthen youth entrepreneurship. The action plan will be presented and agreed upon at a national summit in Toronto on May 13 and 14 of this year.
CYBF is a founding member of the global G-20 Young Entrepreneurs' Alliance and the Canadian Host of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The goal of the G-20 YEA summit this year is to create a global strategy to reduce youth unemployment below 10% by 2020, and instill youth entrepreneurship as a global solution to youth unemployment.
Small businesses represent 98% of Canada's economy, and young entrepreneurs are job creators and key contributors to strengthening our economy. There is reason to be hopeful, as reports show that millennials are now twice as likely to start their own business.
We are pleased that the government has recognized the positive impact CYBF makes in helping young entrepreneurs, and we are committed to building on this momentum.
Thank you.