Backgrounder: Youth Employment Strategy

Youth Employment Strategy

The Youth Employment Strategy (YES) is the Government of Canada’s commitment to help youth make a successful transition to the workplace. YES 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.

• 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.
• Skills Link helps youth facing barriers to employment—including single parents, youth with disabilities, Indigenous youth, young newcomers and youth in rural and remote areas—to develop employability skills and gain the experience they need to find a job or return to school.
• Career Focus helps post-secondary graduates transition to the labour market through paid internships. It helps provide youth with the information and experience they need to make informed career decisions, find a job or pursue advanced studies.

Each year, the Government invests more than $330 million through YES 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, the Government of Canada nearly doubled the Canada Summer Jobs program, creating tens of thousands of additional jobs for young people each year.

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