I want to ask the Housing Minister questions too. Unfortunately, I don’t have any for him today. Seeing how, of course, the Housing Minister is giving out millions of dollars here…
My questions will be directed to the Minister of Human Resources. I’ve received a call, like most MLAs do every year this time of year, which are from both summer students and certainly parents alike, and often they see that other students are getting jobs and they’re hearing about placements already being made.
My question is to the Minister of Human Resources regarding the policy, as such, for early hires. Do we have any particular policy that allows summer students to be hired in advance of the April 1st new budget year starting? It does cause a lot of stress and concern for the students that e-mail, phone, the parents that e-mail and phone, and they want to know why certain kids seem to get all hired early February, or even sooner, and it’s quite frustrating when their kids are competing for jobs and seem to never get a shot.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is no policy for early hiring of students such as in March or February. The target group for the hire of summer students are the students that are finishing the courses down south. Usually these courses end, I think, at the end of April, and so the target for the summer students would be for May, June, July and August, so kind of a four-month program that runs during those four months, and that is the target group, and I think the majority of the students come in there. I’m not aware of students starting earlier than that.
It’s difficult to tell both a parent and a student about the competitive process that they don’t see, don’t know about, and when you tell the parent, well, don’t worry, the system is there for you, I assure you, to be honest, I don’t actually believe that at times, because you hear from parents who see the concern that their kids aren’t being hired, and you hear this regularly.
My question now for the Minister of Human Resources is: What type of public scrutiny process is there to ensure that these potential job openings in departments for summer student positions are not only fair, but honest and transparent so people can see them in a competitive way? Because right now both these parents and students think of them more as they’re about who you know and not necessarily what you know.
The departments use various methods to attract students. They’re on the website, they’re advertised by posters and so on. I indicated yesterday that that type of campaign for this coming summer was started in December 2013. The plan is to try to match the students as much as possible to their studies, so more of what the plan is, is to try to take the students and match them into the departments that they’re eventually hoping to study, and based only on that, not based on people hiring people that they know and so on.
Well, all I know, and I think a lot of Members know, is there’s a little button on some web pages that says apply here, click, send your resume in and good luck. That’s all that exists. There is no transparent process to know you’re competing for anything. There’s no transparent process to say or show or demonstrate your resume actually has gone anywhere besides the in-box of who knows who, who knows where, and who knows when. There is absolutely nothing for any student to know that their resume has been sent out and fairly, competitively been considered. That’s all I’m asking.
Now I’m asking the Minister of Human Resources, what does he have in his authority as a policymaker, as Minister of this department, to show parents and students alike that jobs are being fairly competed for, rather than, as I said earlier, it’s not about what you know, it just seems to be who you know.
The campaign last year and all the years past to try to attract students usually attracts around 700 students, and the target is to try to hire about 300 students. Again, because the summer students are hired based on the vacancy rate that is in the various departments, the departments determine how many students they can hire with that type of budget. We think it’s fairly broad. Like I indicated, we recognize that about 700 students usually register for employment, 700-plus every year, actually, and then around 300 are hired.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have to school a single parent by saying we don’t have a job for every student. They know that. They understand that. They respect that. They know we don’t have the money for that. They’re not fooled. But what they are fooled about and certainly upset about is the myth that their child’s resume is being competitive, and that is making them mad, because they feel they have a fair shot and they’re not getting a fair shot.
All I’m asking this Minister to do, and I’m going to ask him this again, is what type of transparent process can he bring forward to ensure that there is some type of competitive process going on there? Because, quite frankly, parents are seeing their kids not being hired or even considered for interviews and this isn’t happening one year out of three years, this is happening year after year and year and I’ve witnessed it myself. Many darn good A students are being ignored, and the parents’ frustration with me is I guess I’m not a connected parent, I just don’t know the right people, what am I do to. I don’t have an answer. Maybe the Minister of Human Resources has an answer so I can start looking these parents in the face and telling them something. Thank you.
[Microphone turned off] …have very good numbers. When we’re hiring students, we’re hiring students that come back to the North to work. Over 95 percent of the students that do come to work for the GNWT are either priority 1 candidates or priority 2 candidates.
I can talk to the Department of Human Resources to track the students that are coming in. Like I indicated, we’re getting about 700 applicants and if 400 of those students are not hired, then we can track those to determine why they were not a match, why they were not picked by the various departments that they did apply for. Students actually show their interests in the jobs they wish to apply for, so it would not be difficult for us to track those students that were not hired and then provide some feedback to committee on the results of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
