The federal government has spent hundreds of millions on student wage subsidies through the Canada Summer Jobs program, but Employment Department officials admit they cannot say how many actual jobs the program creates.Blacklock's Reporter says a newly released departmental study described the program as “a good policy tool,” though researchers acknowledged this was the first attempt to measure its impact using non-experimental methods.“This is the first time an incremental impact analysis of the Canada Summer Jobs program has been conducted using non-experimental methods,” the report stated.The analysis examined students who participated in the program between April 2019 and December 2020.The Canada Summer Jobs program provides employers with wage subsidies worth up to 50% of student salaries. Ottawa has spent more than $285 million annually on the initiative in recent years, subsidizing more than 74,000 summer positions.Researchers reviewed a random sample of 52,172 participants and found most were female, under the age of 24 and earning less than $10,000 annually.The report said many students planned to return to school after Labour Day and “experienced lower dependence on government supports” during their academic years.Most participants already had previous job experience before joining the program.“Approximately 12% of participants reported Canada Summer Jobs was their first work experience,” the report said..Auditors also found that 28% of participants did not return to school full-time after completing their subsidized employment but instead “strengthened their labour market attachment.”Despite the government promoting the initiative as a job creation program, the report did not disclose how many new jobs were actually created through the subsidies.Federal rules state employers receiving funding “cannot displace or replace existing employees or volunteers,” including workers on layoff, vacation or maternity leave.A 2024 audit of the program criticized Ottawa for failing to track whether subsidized positions represented new employment opportunities.“Despite the program being described as a job creation program, the Department of Employment does not collect data to know how many summer jobs the funding created,” the audit said.Auditor General Karen Hogan later raised the issue during testimony before the Commons public accounts committee.“Our recommendation is about aligning those a little bit better so you can demonstrate the program is meeting its main objectives, and one of those is gathering information about job creation,” Hogan told MPs.“Right now the department just reports on the number of jobs funded instead of the number of jobs created.”“How do you know if the program is achieving its objectives without measuring exactly that?” she asked.
