I do, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.
Let me start with some very brief introductions. I'm Janice Charette, Deputy Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. I am joined today by my colleague Karen Jackson, the acting senior assistant deputy minister responsible for the skills and employment branch at HRSDC, and Sharon Shanks, our director general of services for youth within Service Canada.
I'm here today to talk to you about the Canada summer jobs initiative. The new initiative provides wage subsidies to help Canadian employers create career-related summer jobs for students between the ages of 15 and 30. It is designed to create jobs that not only meet employers' needs but also benefit young people who need the jobs the most.
Canada Summer Jobs is aimed at helping thousands of students across the country secure high-quality, career-related jobs this summer. The initiative was set up to help young people not only find a job, but ultimately to get a good start on a career.
The program was created with three key objectives in mind: first, creating jobs that would otherwise not be created; second, helping students who need it the most; and finally, providing high-quality career-related work experience.
Let me just start by setting some context around the labour market reality that lies behind these objectives. Right now Canada's economy is doing very well, and unemployment is the lowest it has been in 30 years. The Canadian labour market is performing well, and Canadian youth are benefiting from both the buoyant economy and the strong labour market. More than 60,000 jobs have already been posted at Service Canada centres for youth, and that was at the end of May.
In addition, experience with the summer employment programs indicates that many larger private sector employers would hire students without a wage subsidy. That's why private sector employers with more than 50 employees were not included in the Canada summer jobs initiative.
Let me go back to those three main objectives that I described earlier, first with respect to jobs not otherwise created.
There are three primary reasons for this focus. First, program evidence found that the public and the private sectors did not have as much need for a wage subsidy to create summer jobs. In fact, our data indicate that about 43% of public sector employers and 58% in the private sector indicated that they would have created jobs without a subsidy. Second, program evidence also revealed that some employers with access to other funds to hire summer students, such as multinational businesses, were receiving subsidies from the former summer career placement initiative. Our experience with summer employment programming also indicated that students considered their work experiences in the not-for-profit and public sectors to be quite valuable and career-related.
This initiative also encourages employers to help students who need it the most--those who would not find work as a result of where they live, perhaps because of the barriers they face, or both, in some cases. As well, it encourages employers to provide assistance to those areas where students are most in need.
This focus is important, because our program evidence showed that despite a strong economy, many students continued to experience problems in finding summer employment. In addition, some young people experienced higher levels of unemployment than others as a result of the barriers they faced. The unemployment rate, for example, for aboriginal young people was much higher than the 2006 national average of 12% for young people from ages 15 to 24. For example, aboriginal young people from ages 15 to 24 who are living off reserve in British Columbia had an unemployment rate of 20.4%, which is considerably higher than the 12% national average unemployment rate for youth in this age cohort.
Other young people faced barriers related to where they lived. For example, in rural and remote areas such as the territories, northern Manitoba, and some parts of Atlantic Canada, the overall unemployment rate can be 25% or higher, making it very difficult for students to find jobs.
Canada Summer Jobs focuses on creating longer, higher-quality, career-related job experiences for students. It is intended to benefit students by giving them skills for the future and letting them earn money for their education now.
Data we have from students reinforce the focus on career-related jobs. In fact, 55% of students who worked in the not-for-profit sector during 2005 reported that their summer job was related to their career choice and indeed confirmed their career choice. In addition, 74% of students who were employed by the not-for-profit sector indicated that their summer job would help them get full-time work in their chosen field.
Let me provide you with some information on the Canada summer jobs initiative budget. The budget for the initiative for 2007-08 is $85.9 million, which I believe is what Minister Solberg said to you when he met with the committee on May 15, 2007. The full costs of this initiative will not be known until later this year, after the employers who are participating in the program submit all of their documentation to support payment at the end of the summer. Some organizations take a few weeks at the conclusion of the work term, and some even a few months, to submit that information. We are managing the resources for this initiative within the overall departmental resource envelope.
The Canada summer jobs initiative was designed to better suit today's economy and today's labour market. We introduced a set of fair, objective, and rigorous assessment criteria to assess proposals; however, as the program was being launched it became evident that a number of organizations, particularly in the not-for-profit and the public sectors, could not adapt to the new criteria fast enough. We did not anticipate the degree to which applying the new criteria would affect the not-for-profit and public sector organizations that had previously received funding under the summer career placements to deliver important services to communities over the summer.
So Minister Solberg asked us to do a review of the unsuccessful applicants that were not awarded funding in the first round of funding decisions. Obviously, this was a review that we did quite quickly, given that the summer was upon us and this is a summer job program, and we concentrated on the not-for-profit and public sector organizations. The bottom line was to ensure that important services to the community were supported and that high-quality, career-related student jobs that would not otherwise be created would receive funding quickly. We took action there and accelerated the second round of project approvals and related funding decisions. In fact, we then called every organization that was either in the public or not-for-profit sector that had an eligible application under Canada summer jobs that had received funding under the former summer career placement program and had not identified or found alternative sources of funding. We were responsive to the concerns and we're confident that the initiative objectives that I outlined at the beginning of my remarks will continue to be met.
The Canada summer jobs program was designed to ensure students get the best-quality work experience, and the second round of project approvals will continue to ensure students receive worthwhile work experience. But of course, we're already in the conversation about lessons learned within the department, which you wouldn't be surprised about.
We've learned some lessons from our experience. For example, we have been reminded that not-for-profit organizations needed time to adjust to new program criteria, application processes and requirements to be able to submit applications of the required quality.
There's no doubt, though, that we listened and we responded quickly. We're going to continue to listen as we work with employers to finalize the job offers.
Let me return to the issue of funding, because I know that many of you will have questions about the program funding. I want to explain to you or reinforce that we are still in the early stages of implementing this program. We have many thousands of agreements that are in the process of being negotiated right now. As a result, it is impossible to put an exact figure on the cost of this program right now. As I mentioned earlier, exact funding will not be known until the end of the summer, because employers sometimes don't fill the positions that they apply for or offer them for as long as they originally intended. In some other situations, employers find alternative funding.
In conclusion, the Canada summer jobs program is a new initiative. It was designed to reflect a strong economy and a dynamic labour market. The program faced some challenges. We responded, and we will benefit from the lessons learned. The Canada summer jobs program was designed to ensure students get the jobs they need to help them succeed as students and prepare for future careers.
Thank you very much for your attention.
