Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government or this Cabinet has made it very clear that it’s on a mission of hiring 2,000 people. Here in the NWT, homegrown in our communities are students who are being encouraged to go back to school, study all they can and come back and hopefully we can give them a job.
There is always the challenge, of course, ensuring that we strike a balance between large cities like Yellowknife, regional centres and communities as well.
My question is to the Minister of Human Resources. Why are GNWT summer jobs not readily available for students in communities? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Summer Student Employment Program is not restricted to regional centres and Yellowknife. In fact, student summer employment is supposed to be employment for students right across the territory. We are doing some campaign work right now. We’re sending out some e-mail messages and putting some of those employment opportunities on our HR website and a poster advising in Yellowknife, some regional centres and service centres, community band offices and also with the GNWT, government service officers will be going on at this time. Thank you.
Last year there was an effort to recruit at least 280 returning summer students and provide them jobs. Can the Minister indicate to this House how many of those jobs were in communities? Mahsi.
I don’t have the breakdown between the small communities, the regional centres and Yellowknife. What I do have is, of the 271 students who were hired, we were applying the Affirmative Action Policy and 51.7 percent were indigenous Aboriginal students and 43.0 students were indigenous non-Aboriginal students and priority 1. Only 4.4 percent of the students hired by the GNWT last year were from outside of the NWT. Thank you.
I would like to thank the Minister for giving that response in terms of where the jobs are going for students. I hope at some point he will be able to substantiate further some various precise statistics on job concentration for summer students.
Human Resources, of course, is the lead department in terms of dealing with employees of the government. At the same time, it has a lot to do regarding human resource planning, especially with students as they come back home. It’s expected that we do our part in trying to get them career advice and career planning.
Is the department taking the lead to ensure that each department has concrete plans to have summer student employment available for students who return in the summertime in the communities? Mahsi.
The Department of Human Resources has started work with other departments in December of 2013 in preparation for the summer, April to August 2014, preparing to take on summer students. So if there is some work that is being done right now, I can provide the status to committee. I can also provide the number of students last year, the distribution of the summer students in Yellowknife, the regional centres and the ones who have gone into small communities. I will report that back to communities as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government is clearly on a campaign of hiring 2,000 extra people so they can live and work up here in the NWT. The Minister has indicated, as part of the effort to recruit summer students, there’s a campaign that his department is entertaining.
Could the Minister further explain what other substantive and concrete steps he’s willing to take to ensure that we have a target of ensuring that we hire students as much as we can? Would the Minister perhaps even consider meeting the policy directive of ensuring that all government agencies hire some of the students to ensure that returning students are employed? Mahsi.
Thank you. I’m more than prepared and willing to discuss this with the deputy minister of Human Resources to get some sort of a concrete plan on the student hires from all of the deputies. For this student hire, the monies to hire our students is paid out of the vacancy rate of the various departments and it would depend largely on whether or not the departments have some room to be able to hire. In addition to that, the Department of Human Resources is providing a Progressive Experience Program, which is $330 a week to the departments to hire students and we have about 80 places. That’s over and above and within the overall student hires, but it will enhance the student hires in HR. Human Resources also has a program that’s run by the Department of Social Services, the Relevant Experience Program where they have 24 placements and they pay $525 for each student that comes to work within the health and social services system. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
