Finally, some good news! This week, MaryAnn Mihychuk, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, announced that the number of employers in Canada interested in hiring students this year has soared by almost 30 percent.

It’s thanks to a government program called Canada Summer Jobs, which provides incentives for employers to offer more employment opportunities to students. The idea being that it not only benefits the community, but also provides you with meaningful experience and some cash to help minimize student debt.

The Details

• Employers participating range from non-profit, to private and public sector. Essentially anything that’s not a federal government job.
• This year, the program received 36,833 applications from employers, which is up from 28,352 last year.
• Last February, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Government would be providing support to hire up to 70,000 students across the country for summer opportunities, which would double the number of jobs funded in 2015 — only 34,000.
• The bump comes at an increase in federal spending of $113 million each year for the next three years, beginning in 2016–17.
• This is the first increase to the program since 2009, and the program’s original annual budget of about $107.5 million. While the increase in spending will undoubtedly yield criticism from Conservative opposition, the spending really is a drop in the bucket when talking about the allocation of roughly $300 billion. 
• There’s no official list of employers in the program for this year yet, as those who have submitted applications are still waiting to hear back from the Government, but we’ll keep you posted.

What does this mean for you?

Besides an investment in the future (debt free students tend buy more stuff, like, you know, homes), there’s the immediate benefits of putting more students to work this summer. Canada Summer Jobs has been around since 2007, and has employed over 330,000 student, however in 2015, 300,000 students in Canada were unable to find summer jobs.

It means there are way more summer job opportunities this summer than last, and there will probably be more and more for the next three years. However, it does not mean that there’s a seat for every butt, so you need to start your job hunting process ASAP if you want to secure a spot.

Of course, we’ve got tips for that.

And if you’re a student in the Toronto area, we’ll be holding a meet up for student job hunters that you can not afford to miss out on.