Backgrounder - Youth homelessness prevention project receives major investment from Government of Canada

Youth Employment Strategy

The Youth Employment Strategy (YES) is the Government of Canada’s commitment to help youth make a successful transition to the workforce. The Strategy helps youth between the ages of 15 and 30 get the information and gain the skills, job experience and abilities they need to make a successful transition to the workforce. YES includes Skills Link, Career Focus and Summer Work Experience, and is delivered by 11 federal departments.

• Skills Link helps youth facing barriers to employment—including single parents, youth with disabilities, young newcomers and youth in rural and remote areas—to develop the skills and gain the experience needed to find a job or return to school. 

• Career Focus helps post-secondary graduates transition to the labour market through paid internships and helps provide youth with the information and experience they need to make informed career decisions, find a job and pursue advanced studies. 

• Summer Work Experience provides wage subsidies to employers to create summer employment for secondary and post-secondary students. The Summer Work Experience program includes Canada Summer Jobs. The Canada Summer Jobs program provides funding to not-for-profit organizations, public-sector employers and small businesses with 50 or fewer employees to create summer job opportunities for young people aged 15 to 30 who are full-time students intending to return to their studies in the next school year.

Each year, the Government invests approximately $330 million in the Strategy to help young people gain the skills and experience they need to find and keep good jobs.

Budget 2016 provided $165.4 million in 2016–17 for YES to create new green jobs for youth, increase the number of youth who access the Skills Link program, and support employment opportunities in the heritage sector. In 2016, Employment and Social Development Canada received an additional $339 million to create up to 35,000 additional jobs under the Canada Summer Jobs program each year for three years.

To further expand employment opportunities for young Canadians, Budget 2017 proposes to provide an additional $395.5 million over three years for YES, starting in 2017–18.

The 2016 and 2017 investments will help more than 33,000 vulnerable youth develop the skills they need to find work or go back to school; create 15,000 new green jobs for young Canadians; and provide over 1,600 new employment opportunities for youth in the heritage sector.