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On March 12, 1996, Human Resources Development Minister Douglas Young unveiled details of the Government of Canada’s expanded support for summer job creation, and launched Student Summer Job Action. The program is designed to help secondary and post-secondary students land important career-related jobs. The Summer Career Placements (SCP) Program, which focuses on students by providing career-related work experience to in-school youth during summer months, is one of the five components of Student Summer Job Action for 1996. The SCP Program is a government and employer partnership that encourages student hiring and work experience leading to future careers. It is considered to be the main engine of the Government of Canada’s student job creation. SCP was expected to create 45,000 summer jobs in 1996 with a total budget of $90 million.

SCP provides wage subsidies to private, public (educational institutions, hospitals and municipalities) and not-for profit sector employers to create career-related summer jobs for students. The range of subsidy maximums are dependent on a number of factors (employer sector, provincial/territorial adult minimum wage rate per hour, related overhead costs, whether student hired has disabilities, and job accommodation requirements).

The purpose of this evaluation was to review the implementation of the SCP program by provinces and nationally to determine if SCP is achieving its objectives and is being implemented as planned.

The following methodologies were applied to the study:

• Document review relating to the SCP Program in particular, as well as to pre-existing summer job creation programs (e.g., SEED, Challenge ‘85, Opportunities for Youth, etc.);

• Key informant interviews with:

• HRDC staff, in the regions and at HQ, responsible for the design and delivery of the SCP. These included interviews with SCP Coordinators (11), HRCC managers (7: 4 rural, 3 urban), manager of 1 HRCC for Students, and key NHQ staff (2); and

• a sample of 19 employers representing each of the three main sectors (at least 6 from each category), i.e., private, public and not for profit.

• A case study of Labatts (included in the sample of employers to be interviewed) plus two of the charities it helps fund; and

• A representative survey of 1000 employers and 658 participating students to examine the impact of SCP in providing students who are returning to school with career-oriented summer employment and assisting with the school-to-work transition.

Findings and Conclusions

The following summarizes our main findings and conclusions.

Work Experience

Career Development

• SCP provides slightly more “career opportunity” and financial support than “work experience”.

• Both participants and employers felt strongly that SCP participants gained new skills.

Incrementality

• While the information collected suggests that the program has resulted in the creation of many new jobs, incrementality can be weakened — for a number of reasons — both with respect to the job created and with respect to the job opportunity.

• Excluding employers who would not have hired a student if the wage subsidy had not been available (69.0%), almost two-fifths (37.2%) of the remainder said that they would not have paid the same wages to their student if they had not received any assistance from the SCP (presumably they would have paid less). This compares with almost three-fifths (57.3%) who would have paid the same wages.

Future Job Opportunities

• The majority (71.3%) of participants feel that their summer job will help them get full-time work in their chosen field compared to 19.7% who do not think it will help (9.0% are unsure or don’t know).

• Almost two-thirds (63.0%) of the employers surveyed said that their organization intended to re-hire their SCP student at a later date.

Sector

• Encouraging private sector participation this year may have weakened the overall work experience — both career development and incrementality — of the program.

Education

• Post-secondary students had a more favorable perception of the program’s benefits to them than high school students.

Program Efficiency

Timeliness

• Employers and staff commented on the lateness of the Ministerial Announcement. They suggest that a “regular” announcement — taking place no later than a week or two before spring break every year — would go a long way towards helping businesses and students plan. Other HRDC programs are not hindered by this.

Marketing

• Very few new employers enter the SCP program as most HRDC staff do not formally market the program.

Recruitment

• About two-fifths (40.4%) of the employers used the HRCCs for Students to hire a student and a few of them (2.8%) felt that the HRCC’s screening of the students could be improved.

Employer Costs

• Employers do not incur any significant administrative costs as a consequence of the current wage subsidy process.

Monitoring

• The regions displayed divergent views on monitoring ranging from 10% to 100%.

Roles and Responsibilities

• While both employers and HRDC staff noted that the roles and responsibilities of the various HRDC players were clearly understood, HRDC staff expressed some concerns about the role of the Members of Parliament.

Alternatives

• In general, both employers and HRDC staff held mixed views about the need to change the wage subsidy.

Profiles

Employers

• More than half (51.6%) of the employers using the SCP came from the non-profit sector. Another third (31.0%) came from the private sector while the remaining fifth (17.4%) came from the public sector.

• Almost two-thirds (62.7%) of the employers surveyed hired just one student under the SCP this summer. Another fifth (21.3%) hired two students under the program while a tenth (10.5%) hired three or four. Of the remaining 5.4%, almost half (2.5%) employed five or six students.

Participants

• Almost two-thirds (65.9%) of the participants are female compared to one-third (34.1%) male.

• A little more than two-fifths (41.2%) of the participants are between 15 and 19 years of age, almost half (46.6%) are 20 to 24 years of age, while the remaining 12.0% are more than 24 years of age.

• Some 71.0% of participants reported attending a post-secondary institution in September 1995 compared to 25.6% who attended high school. About 3.3% of the participants did neither.

• Some 92.4% of SCP participants will be returning to school in September 1996. Of the 7.3% not returning, almost half (48.4%) will be looking for work instead.

• Some 4.2% of participants have disabilities. About 6.4% are aboriginal and 6.7% are members of a visible minority.

Program Satisfaction

• The vast majority (90.7%) of SCP students strongly liked or liked their summer job.

• Almost all employers (94.9%) were fully satisfied with the overall performance of their SCP student.

Continuing Need

• Almost every participant thought that a government program that tries to prepare students for full-time jobs through summer work experience was a good idea.

• Almost every employer (98.6%) would be interested in applying should the SCP, or a similar program, be available next summer.