Hiring Grant Programs for Recent Grads
Marketing Specialist
Every spring the Canadian government releases funds that in turn supports dozens of hiring grant programs. These funding for hiring programs offer small to medium-sized businesses up to $20,000 in funding to create new jobs for recent post-secondary graduates. While it is obviously a great opportunity for small to medium-sized businesses interested in off-setting the cost of hiring new staff; these programs also offer insight into what types of industries and positions the federal and provincial governments are interested in promoting as future growth engines of the economy.
While several industry-specific and position-specific programs exist to fund high-growth sectors like the aerospace, food processing, bio-science, software development, and advanced manufacturing.
Here are some of the positions that funding organizations are most supportive of:
Positions in sales and marketing, general administrative roles, and positions that do not have correlative post-secondary programs.
While additional eligibility criteria exists for each specific program, the following are required to be met for the majority of hiring grant programs:
- Employees must be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or have been granted refugee status,
- Employees must be 15-29 years of age,
- Must provide eligible work experience
- For the majority of programs employees must be a recent graduate of a post-secondary institution (within past 5 years).
- Most programs employers must have some insurance (types & amounts differ),
- Most programs a “place of work” is required,
- Most programs require the position to be full time (i.e. 30 hours+ per week) for a period of between 3-12 months within a defined period of time as outlined in the specific program,
- Some programs it is required that the business is incorporated,
- Some programs require on the job training or mentoring.
All of these government funding programs are business-led initiatives, meaning that you hires cannot approach a funding organization directly. However, it might not hurt to let prospective employers know that if hired you could bring in from $12,000 to $20,000 in free money in order to support the cost of your salary.
Use a Hiring Grant Program to Find Your Next Employee
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