A record number of Northern students will be employed over the next couple months as part of the Canada Summer Jobs Program.
Employment Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk announced Thursday that 436 jobs have been approved for funding across the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut this year, compared to 146 created in 2015.
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 students.
Of the 436 Northern jobs approved for funding, 99 are in the small business sector, 94 are in the public sector and 243 are in the not-for-profit sector.
In order to be considered for a position, students must be between the ages of 15 and 30 and be returning to full-time studies in the next school year.
Last year, the Government of Canada spent $106 million on the program to help create more than 34,000 summer jobs.
New funding of up to $113 million each year for the next three years will allow the program to offer nearly 70,000 summer jobs to students from now until 2018.
In 2016, $1.7 million of funding has been made available to Canada’s three territories which marks a notable increase from last year’s funding total of $505,300.
At the same time, more Northern students are applying for positions through the program. So far, 213 youth have applied for jobs in 2016 compared to 127 last year.
According to the federal government, an estimated 300,000 Canadian students were unable to find work last summer.
