Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To follow up on my Member’s statement here today, I have some questions for the Minster of Human Resources. In the past, government departments have identified potential summer student positions and the process has been started. Right now, there seems to be a delay, so I would like to ask, can the Minister tell us what the department's plans are in rolling out summer jobs this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ultimately the hiring of summer students is a responsibility of the individual departments. The Department of Human Resources helps facilitate the summer student process by actually getting students registered. The Department of Human Resources has been undertaking marketing and the intake of summer students since December 2015. We've been out advertising on the GNWT career website. Posters and advertising have been placed around Yellowknife and other locations, regional human resource offices. We've done a Student Financial Assistant blast to individual students saying, “Come on, let's get registered as a summer student,” and we've also been posting on Facebook. We're encouraging students to get registered so that when the departments do decide to actually hire some summer students, they can go to the registered students and select appropriate students based on our hiring practices. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'm a little bit confused. I guess. Do departments come to Human Resources and tell you exactly how many positions they're looking for? If they are, how many positions are looked for outside of Yellowknife?
The Department of Human Resources, as I've indicated, will actually go out and get students who are interested in getting summer student work with the government registered. At that point, if a department chooses to hire summer students, and ultimately the departments get to choose when, how long, and where, or those types of things, with respect to whether or not they hire summer students. They can come to the Department of Human Resources and review our database to make sure that they're selecting individuals that are suitable for the types of employment that they're looking for, apply an affirmative action and those types of things. There is no set number of students. Last year, we were able to hire 341 students in the Government of the Northwest Territories, but there is no set number. Obviously, we as a government want to employ as many students as we can and we want to employ as many students throughout the territories, not just in Yellowknife, but in regional centres, communities, but ultimately where, how long, and where they actually do the hiring is the decision of individual departments. Human Resources will help facilitate the process.
Is the Department of Human Resources willing to work with the departments to see if we can get some summer employment positions out to the smaller communities -- not the regional centres, but the smaller communities to help get employment for these students?
Absolutely. I mean if the departments indicate that they have some positions they'd like to fill in the communities, we're absolutely there to help support them to select the appropriate individuals to fill those positions and we do have a couple of different programs that are available through the Department of Human Resources to help the departments actually do some hiring. We have the Progressive Experience Program that actually provides a subsidy to the individual departments to help them offset the cost of hiring summer students. They could certainly use that type of funding in communities, regions, as well as centres throughout the Northwest Territories, but we're there to help the departments facilitate the process and hire the most appropriate students for the jobs that they wish to put in place.
MR. SPEAKER:
I thank the Minister again for the great information that we can share with the small communities. Can the Minister use summer employment strategies to help get these small communities employed with working with the departments for next year?
Through Building Our Future 20/20, we're actually always looking for ways to enhance the employment opportunities for students, as well as just residents of the Northwest Territories. I'd be interested in sitting down with the Member and getting a little bit more insight into what the Member means by a youth employment strategy and how he would see something like that rolling out, but I'd certainly be interested in having that conversation and getting more input and feedback from the Member and committee.
MR. SPEAKER:
