Ottawa Helps Youth with Summer Jobs

Human Resources and Skills Development minister JoeVolpe announces new programme

The Federal government announced last week that $250 million have been earmarked for assisting students looking for a summer job. This initiative will also involve numerous private companies, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises.
The announcement came from Human Resources and Skills Development minister Joe Volpe. "The purpose of this initiative," told us Joe Volpe, "is not just to give financial assistance to the students, but also to allow them to expand their professional expertise before their entry in the labour market."
In particular, in the Greater Toronto Area alone, some $20 million will be split more or less equally among the different wards.
Eight million dollars will fund initiatives that will involve young students who wish to work in the summer to prepare themselves to enter the workforce. The remainder of the sum should go - but this hasn't been officialized yet - to youth with specific employment problems due to lack of adaptability or education.
"This is an opportunity," said Volpe, "for our youth to improve their chances of getting good jobs when they will leave school and enter the workforce."
It would go like this: students and companies will be allowed to submit detailed programmes to one of the regional offices of the Ministry of Human Resource and Skills Development, explaining the reason for the initiative, its outline, and its duration. The Ministry will examine and possibly approve them before the start of the summer break.
In principle, explained Volpe, the funds will be split equally, some $250,000 to each ward, but the minister specified that the unemployment rate of each ward will be considered, and there might be additional funding.
Volpe repeatedly underscored how the initiative is not just a way to give some money to students. "Clearly that is important for both the students and their families, but we are interested in increasing the student's professional expertise, boosting chances for an easy entry into the job market."
The GTA has $8 million readily available, while the national total for this Summer Placement program amounts to $90 million. The rest of the funds, bringing the total up to $250 million and concerning the Skills Link program, will come in the next few days. "These figures will be reviewed and possibly increased according to need. Clearly, if an area has a lot of unemployment it will get more funds."
The second programme, called Skills Link, deals with youth between 15 and 29 years of age with employment problems due to lack of experience, dropping out of school, or similar reasons. The GTA alone will get some $12 million more.
"In summary, we want to valorize the human capital of our country," continued Volpe, "by investing on our youth."
Volpe insisted, "this is even more important if we consider that in the next 5 years 70 percent of the jobs will require people with more than grade 12 education. Just six percent of all new jobs require unskilled labour."
Volpe's announcement was attended by numerous MPs including Dennis Mills, Tony Ianno, Alan Tonks, Sarkis Assadourian, Maria Minna, Roy Cullam, Jim Karigiannis, and Senators Gerry Grafstein and Susan Poy. "The presence of so many colleagues," said Volpe, "is the answer to the question about what the federal government does with our money. We're investing in our youth."


MODELS FOR IMPROVEMENT

There's a Canada wide mechanism put in place, but Joe Volpe's ministry will be working with some partners on the provincial levels in developing the programme in the various sectors. The important thing to keep in mind is that in five years 70 percent of all jobs will require some level of post-secondary education. Volpe expressed that youth today can't just get away with saying "I turned 16 and I'm gonna go out and get a job." In five years it will mean that they have a 30 percent chance of landing a job without some sort of post-secondary education.

There are three models in which this programme works:

Workplace skill development: There are employers who are looking to upgrade the skills of some of their employees. They can access government funds to cover the expenses for getting students off their work and into "their classroom" or skills upgrading, and is a model specific to a location. The ministry will tend to deal with a particular sector; there are 26 industrial sectors. Sector councils will work with employers in their sector in order to provide a broad range of skills required in each of those partnerships within a particular sector. It is a partnership between the government and the council and through them the employers.

Labour sponsored skills development: Labour unions have training centres that are equipped to handle the development of skills of many of their members. Typically, for example, employers working with the union will say, "We got the month of January for working. We need people to upgrade their skills as plumbers, carpenters, etc. and we need is a programme that demonstrates the various skills level, tests them, teaches them, evaluates them." In turn the Ministry will work with the union in order to make that happen. The union will bring in a master plumber or a master technician. Typically they'll bring in the journeymen and upgrade them. Using a construction site for example, 11 skills are needed. Sometimes those skills, because of new technology, have to be varied. So some of the programmes will be longer in length than others.

Community College skill development: This third model is more traditional. Primarily, Community Colleges, especially when talking about Ontario, have enhanced capabilities to deliver on skills that they feel people require as they go through their own demographic analysis and economic analysis of what is required in a particular field.

"The rest of the issue is on post-secondary education," says Volpe. "We are trying to provide an alleviation of their difficulties. For example, we're going to provide an extended time period for the repayment of student loans, and make more things deductible from their loan amount. We're going to try to make it easier for them to qualify for loans, trying to increase their economic threshold with parents in order that more people from the middle class are in the mix. In the same token we're going to address kids in lower income families. As well we're going to give parents an education bond so that they can get into that RESP mode very early on in a child's life. If they put in some money we can give them some."

Publication Date: 2004-02-08
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3624