Latest news with #EmploymentAndSocialDevelopmentCanada
CBC
16 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
Feds announce up to 6,000 more Canada Summer Jobs as youth struggle to find work
Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu announced Friday afternoon the federal government is creating up to 6,000 more spots in the Canada Summer Jobs program for young people — a move that comes as many struggle to find work. "This is late breaking news, but I think super important to be able to help with the sort of urgency this summer," Hajdu said in an interview with CBC's The House airing Saturday morning. According to a news release, the federal government is reallocating $25 million from Employment and Social Development Canada to create the extra 6,000 jobs. The release also said CSJ was "on track" to create 70,000 jobs for youth this summer. The unemployment rate for people between 15 and 24 years old has steadily ticked upward, according to Statistics Canada. In January 2023, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in this age group was 10 per cent. In May 2025, it was 14.2 per cent. Mel Purchase, a 19-year-old from Alliston, Ont., said she's been driving around submitting her resumé to temp agencies "and just hope for the best, and hope they can figure something out to help me." Purchase said her ideal job would be working in a factory to build toward her dream career in welding, but "every single person is looking for work." She told The House she's trying to stay positive, but "it's a little bit stressful trying to figure everything out and trying to plan, especially because of just how expensive everything is and once again, the entire hiring crisis." "It sucks. Just trying over and over and over again to get a job or just any sort of income is very hard," Purchase said. Hajdu said the government is looking to build projects across Canada quickly, which requires more tradespeople. Because of that, it will be "heavily investing" in opportunities for young people to improve their skills if they're interested in going into the trades. Canada Summer Jobs provides wage subsidies to support employers in creating summer work experiences for those between the ages of 15 and 30 years old. Riley Locke, a 25-year-old graduate student at Toronto Metropolitan University, told The House he needed to complete a summer internship between the first and second year of his master's in urban planning, but the experience was "frustrating." Locke, who submitted hundreds of applications since January, spoke with host Catherine Cullen a week before he finally landed a job. In a follow-up interview, he said he's relieved but "it's hard not to feel like it's pretty much just luck of the draw." "I had my fair share of really stressful days where I had received a rejection email," Locke said. What's to blame? Ilona Dougherty, co-creator of the Youth & Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo, said Purchase and Locke's experiences of sending out countless resumés with no luck is exactly what she's been hearing for well over a year. "Unfortunately, young people are the canary in the coal mine," Dougherty said. She added there's currently an "incredibly complex economic situation" on top of other challenging factors like increasing use of AI and a large number of temporary foreign workers. Locke said the job application process can sometimes feel demeaning and dehumanizing because some companies use AI to sort through applications. He added it becomes a "guessing game" to figure out "whether I need to be writing for a human or writing for a robot." Dougherty said Canada needs to "fundamentally rethink what entry-level jobs are going to look like for young people" if it wants a workforce that is not economically disengaged in five to 10 years. "AI is a train barrelling down the tracks, but we're certainly not going to stop it. We need to make sure young people are prepared," Doughty said. She also referenced a New York Times guest essay from a LinkedIn executive who wrote that AI is breaking the "bottom rung of the career ladder." In late May, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani launched a petition to end the temporary foreign worker program and cited youth unemployment as one reason why. Dougherty said the situation is "a lot more complex than [Jivani] presents it to be," but she added there is evidence that wages depress when companies rely on temporary foreign workers rather than paying a young Canadian. "It's not just about stopping immigration of all kinds and this will magically fix the problem. But certainly we have to make sure that companies are paying proper wages for those entry-level roles. That's absolutely critical," she said. "We need to really take this seriously and invest in young people.… It's up to the adults. This is not the young peoples' fault, and we need to fix the problem."
National Post
28-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
Michael Bonner: We need an immigration policy that will serve all Canadians
Article content To make it all happen, Ottawa should create a new 'population' ministry, formed out of every existing federal ministry and department that deals with immigration, housing, the labour market and family formation (such as Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation). Article content Of course, this is no small task and would take time. But the main policy areas (immigration, housing, labour, parental benefits and population growth) must be viewed as a single system, and a single ministry must be held accountable for the success or failure of future reforms. Article content In consultation with the provinces, this new ministry would be required to keep immigration at a manageable level, taking into account the state of infrastructure, housing and integration services, along with labour market needs. Artificial Intelligence could be a useful tool in helping predict labour and housing shortages before they happen. Article content This consolidated ministry would favour high-skill, high-wage immigration above all other categories. And, like some other countries, the ministry would be required to publish total immigration numbers, along with all other relevant population and labour-market information, as part of every federal budget, to ensure maximum transparency. Article content This ministry would also work with the provinces to develop pro-natal strategies to stabilize or, ideally, reverse the decline in domestic birth rates. This should be informed by successful policies implemented by our peers abroad. Article content Incentives could include cash bonuses, tax breaks, awards, more generous leave and other signs of public esteem for parenthood. Meanwhile, governments across the country must remove regulatory hurdles and revisit post-war mass production and prefabrication, in order to increase the supply of new housing. Article content Canada's immigration policy has failed Canadians. But if properly managed, a new population policy, which includes immigration, can be a powerful force for nation-building and help create and maintain a prosperous and orderly society in an increasingly uncertain world. Article content Article content Article content
CBC
14-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Investigation underway after on-duty lighthouse keeper dies alone, west of Prince Rupert, B.C.
The Canadian Coast Guard and a federal workers' agency are investigating after an on-duty lighthouse keeper died in April at a station just off the coast of northwestern B.C., about 40 kilometres west of Prince Rupert. The Triple Island Lighthouse station is supposed to be staffed by a principal and assistant lightkeeper at all times, but due to a shift change, the coast guard says the man was alone when he died. The lighthouse is located on the northwesterly rock of a group of three islets known as the Triple Islands and was built in 1920 to guide marine traffic travelling north up B.C.'s coast to Alaska, as well as for deepsea ships navigating to and from Prince Rupert. The remote station is only accessible by helicopter. On the afternoon of April 2, the coast guard says it tried to contact the lightkeeper multiple times. Hearing nothing back, it sent a nearby helicopter to conduct a wellness check on him. When the pilot arrived, they found the lightkeeper unresponsive and called 911. B.C. Emergency Health Services arrived on site and pronounced the man dead. The RCMP and two members from the coast guard's Prince Rupert station travelled to Triple Island before turning the matter over to Employment and Social Development Canada, the federal department responsible for working conditions, for further investigation. The department will be investigating whether the Canadian Coast Guard is in compliance with the Canada Labour Code. Under the Code, federally regulated employers must protect the health and safety of every employee while at work, and ensure they have the necessary information, training and supervision to perform their jobs safely. WorkSafeBC has said that because the incident took place at a federal workplace, it is outside of its jurisdiction. "This was a very, very tragic event and very sad that it had to happen," said Jim Abram, a retired lighthouse keeper and former local president of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees (UCTE), which represents lighthouse keepers. Lighthouse should have had 2 people, retired keeper says Abram says the Triple Island Lighthouse Station is extremely important for providing weather observations for marine and aviation traffic, and is concerned that the lighthouse keeper was alone at the time of his death. He says the station is staffed on a rotational basis where two keepers will work a 10- to 14-day shift and then are replaced by two other keepers. "Remote isolated stations are not supposed to be staffed by a single person, so that has always been the case as long as I've been a keeper," he said. Abram says his understanding of what happened in April is that when the two outgoing keepers were picked up during the shift change, only one keeper was dropped off with the supplies. The coast guard hasn't provided details on why the lighthouse keeper was alone at the time of shift change, but Abram is hopeful the investigation will shed more light on the circumstances surrounding the keeper's death. "In this situation, if there are safety measures that can be taken, if it was a safety issue, then those safety issues need to be remedied by the coast guard," he said. "It's been extremely devastating for the other three keepers. All of them have been extremely distraught because of this. Having somebody die right there on your station is not a happy event."
