News release

Revenue Canada announces Federal Youth Hires Program to give employers premium relief for hiring young people

OTTAWA, January 14, 1999...The Honourable Herb Dhaliwal, Minister of National Revenue and M.P. (Vancouver South-Burnaby), and the Honourable Pierre S. Pettigrew, Minister of Human Resources Development, announced today the new Federal Youth Hires Program. This initiative is designed to provide Employment Insurance (EI) premium relief to employers who hire young people.

Under the program, the total EI premiums employers will pay for youths in 1999 and 2000 will be no more than they paid in 1998. If employer EI premiums increase over this 1998 base amount, employers will get relief.

"Revenue Canada is proud to play a role in supporting the integration of young people into the workforce," said the Minister of National Revenue. "We are encouraging employers to create more opportunities for young people, who are eager to participate fully in the growth of the Canadian economy."

"The Government of Canada has developed Canada's Youth Employment Strategy to help young Canadians make a strong transition from school to the labour market," said the Minister of Human Resources Development. "I encourage employers to take full advantage of Revenue Canada's relief program which offers them direct support for creating employment for young people."

There are two ways for employers to obtain premium relief. One will be completely administered by the Department and the other can be done by employers. For premium relief administered by the Department, Revenue Canada will calculate the 1998 total insurable earnings for employees aged 18 to 24 for each employer. This calculation will be based on the information employers provided on the T4 and T4F information returns for 1998. When the Department processes employers' T4 and T4F information returns for 1999 early in the year 2000, it will calculate any premium relief to which employers are entitled under this program. The same approach will be used early in the year 2001 for T4 and T4F information returns for 2000.

If employers choose to benefit from the program during 1999, they will need to calculate themselves the EI insurable earnings for 1998 related to their employees aged 18 to 24. Once the same amount of EI insurable earnings have been paid in 1999 for employees in this age group, employers may elect to stop paying additional employer EI premiums for this youth group.

This program supports the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy, which is designed to help youth make the transition from school to work. Working in partnership with businesses, non-governmental organizations, communities, and other levels of government, the strategy addresses youth employment issues by providing work experience opportunities for unemployed or underemployed youth and students, by providing access to relevant information on Canada's labour market, and by facilitating access to learning.

More information on this program is available from tax services offices and tax centres. The addresses and telephone numbers for the offices are listed under "Revenue Canada" in the Government of Canada section of the telephone book. Information is also available on the Department's Web site at: www.rc.gc.ca (Frequently Requested Publications). For information on the Youth Employment Strategy, call the Youth Info Line at 1-800-935-5555 or visit the Strategy on the Youth Resource Network at: www.youth.gc.ca.

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