As the minister noted, year over year—and I believe I referred to this in my testimony at the last committee—our experience had been successive increases in numbers of applications received and in numbers of jobs requested. We're still finalizing the program for summer 2019, because, of course, the applications just closed in early February, and we're frantically beavering through.
What I would note is we seem to have slightly fewer actual applications in jobs, but an over $125-million request in the value of the jobs being proposed. That speaks to, of course, employers respecting increases in minimum wages, but it also reflects, I suspect, a desire to create longer jobs, and as the minister noted, quality jobs for youth.
Those are preliminary numbers for summer 2019 because, of course, we're still just finalizing all the applications and requests we got.