Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on my Member's statement on summer students I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources. Can the Minister advise this House how many students applied for the summer employment with GNWT in 2016 and how many were hired? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Human Resources.
We had 628 summer student applications in 2016; out of that 306 students were hired.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise if there's going to be any sort of strategy to increase that number for the coming summer of 2017?
HR has begun a review of the summer student program and a review will also be undertaken with the graduate internship program, and both of these reviews are being done under the Student and Youth Initiative to further enhance existing recruitment initiatives. Our Premier has encouraged all Ministers to try and take on as many summer students as possible. The former Minister of HR has tried to encourage all Ministers to take on as many summer students as possible through their department, and I will commit to this House that I will have a conversation with the Ministers and see how we can improve our summer student hires.
Mr. Speaker, that is the same process we've been following for quite a number of years and, as a result, the number stays around 300. What I was talking about in my Member's statement is trying to find a way to actually increase that number substantially, so just talking about it more is probably not going to do that. So I'm going to ask the Minister if the Minister is prepared to sit down with Cabinet and set some concrete numbers for each department and have the departments hold to those numbers?
Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to just point out that our vacancy rate, we have about 231 vacancies as of June 30th -- 231.85 vacancies at June 30th, and I know the Member has said that we have been talking about this for a while and I think when we gather here next fall then Members can -- well, hopefully, we'll have a better indicator of the summer students that were hired over the summer.
As I said before, our Premier and the former Minister of HR and the current Minister of HR will encourage our departments to see how we can better utilize our summer students, because we do recognize that it's very important for our students that are attending school to get summer employment so they can be ready for school again in the fall. So, I mean, I've made a commitment to this House that I will work with the colleagues to see if we can improve on those numbers.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I feel like there should be a setting of a target so that we do actually meet the target. The Minister just quoted a number of 230-something vacancies, but we haven't seen a PeopleSoft report. We were talking 900 people at one point, there's 900 vacancies. I'm wondering if the 200 vacancies are just the current number that the department is trying to recruit as opposed to the actual vacancy number of which many of them are contracts, casuals and whatnot. So again I'd like to ask the Minister: on summer students, if Cabinet can set an actual number and hold the departments to that number? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure if we could set a concrete number. I mean, what I could commit to, and I've said it before, is we could either meet and beat this year's total, I think which would be an improvement, and so that's the goal we'll strive for. Again, I'll work with my Cabinet colleagues to encourage them -- to encourage their departments to bring on more summer students. So that's the direction we go, and again, as we gather this time next year I think we'll have a good indication if I fulfil that commitment or not.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
