Human Resources Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

In your experience, of course.

[Valerie Walker]

—we just hosted a meeting with leading CEOs, and we brought them together around three key industry sectors. The first was AI. That is not a big surprise. The second was the energy sector, with both renewables—clean energy—and our traditional energy. The third was the defence sector and space.

Those are three very recent examples. CEOs from all three of those industry groups talked about the need, in some cases, to drastically increase the number of people working in those sectors.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

When you talk about the defence sector, are you talking manufacturing of defence equipment or are you talking about people signing up for the military?

[Valerie Walker]

In this meeting it was both.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

In our current job market, are there a lot of jobs available? We're talking about youth unemployment. Are they jobs that people don't want, or is it just that there aren't a lot of jobs or that they're jobs they're not trained for?

[Valerie Walker]

That is the question.

There are significant numbers of job vacancies right now; at the same time, there are high levels of youth and general unemployment. The nuance, with the regional and industry breakdown, as well as skills qualifications for people, very quickly complicates the question as to why those jobs can't be filled with people who are looking for jobs when they need them.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Are there lots available?

[Valerie Walker]

Yes.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Do you think post-secondary institutions are in tune with the modern job market?

[Valerie Walker]

I will not paint all post-secondary institutions with the same brush, but one of the reasons we have initiated this transformation and higher education initiative is that there is definitely opportunity for them to be more in tune with employer needs, the needs of their students and the labour market writ large.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Would you say that's something that would be industry-driven, or do you think that would be government-driven?

[Valerie Walker]

I would argue that it needs to be industry-driven. I would suggest that, both provincially and federally, there is a role for government in terms of providing incentives in certain places to drive certain behaviours, but the drive itself for where employees are needed the most and where there's the greatest potential for earnings or economic growth has to come from industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Ms. Desrochers, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the participants for joining us today. We're very grateful to them.

This is the first meeting in which we are actually focusing on youth unemployment and what is at the root of it. It's a very constructive conversation, so thank you for this.

Maybe I'll start with Mrs. Walker. I just want you to expand a little. How much of this gap that we've been talking about, between talent and opportunity, is at the root of youth unemployment versus general unemployment? I'm not expecting a scientific answer from you.

[Valerie Walker]

I think there are three buckets: There's that ability for students to transition from school into work; there's general unemployment; and then there are youth not in education or employment, the so-called NEET youth.

The student needs are high, of course. We talk about the wilderness time—the time between graduating and getting that first job—that's lost productivity. It's equally true, though, for those not coming through traditional post-secondary. There need to be the same types of incentives or supports for them to get those jobs. For those individuals, it would happen at an earlier stage, whether that's in high school or through some other community organization that provides that opportunity. It's part, but certainly not the whole thing.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

I'd like to hear from Mr. Henderson on the same question.

[Robert Henderson]

Our labour market research indicates that the biggest demand among employers is the lack of talent with the available skills. During COVID and pre COVID, the need for the access to capital, which is just money to hire, usually outweighed the lack of available talent and skills. COVID flipped that on its ear. Soon afterward, they were saying that now it's just a lack of people with the skills that they require. This is why some of the programs we were talking about, which bridge that gap between post-secondary and employers, are so critical.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

If I can continue with you for a minute, what do you think are some of the features of the current program that are helping bridge that gap? Then, how do we scale it? You talked about some pretty good successes, so how do we scale that? Do we bring more employers? Ms. Walker referred to bigger employers earlier and some of the navigation of the bureaucracy and systems around that.

We can start with you, and go to Ms. Walker after.

[Robert Henderson]

Sure. I'm not speaking for only the biotech sector, but almost universally the student work placement program runs out of placements every year. In other words, demand has far exceeded supply. That wasn't just during COVID; that's been ever since. Small and medium-sized enterprises really like the program because it alleviates the pain of onboarding the only available talent they have—students—to try to groom them to become, then, future employees. The experienced employees simply aren't available to them, or there's too much competition for them.

Now, the scalability of the—

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but can I just follow up? I'm going back to something you said earlier, that about 50% of employers keep.... The programs are successful, in your opinion, not necessarily because of the wage subsidy that is offered but because they are bridging the gap, connecting.

[Robert Henderson]

That's right, but because the access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises follows closely behind the access to talent, it fills two fundamental needs: It alleviates the pain for onboarding, but, more importantly, it connects them, through the academic institutions, to the most available source of talent that they need.

I can go on to your question about scalability, if that's okay.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Yes. Go ahead quickly, because I'd like to hear from Ms. Walker as well. You have, maybe, 20 seconds.

[Robert Henderson]

Because, like mine, there are sectoral associations that provide the program, the scalability can be very much that, if the government's priority is among some of the things—like agriculture, aviation, manufacturing or other sectors—that have been hit by tariffs, the student work placement program can be, as was shown during COVID, a highly effective delivery mechanism for economic stimulus.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you so much.

Go ahead, Ms. Walker.

[Valerie Walker]

I would just say that the large employers, like I said off the top, need to be at the table. They hire a ton of students, and they are not in a position to want, nor frankly should they have, public subsidies to offset the cost of students.

Student wages, for even a lot of small and medium-sized companies, aren't prohibitive. I agree with Rob that there are other supports needed, but looking at scale, I'll just say we did 70,000 WILs, and we do not provide subsidies to the employers. The employers pay the students themselves, and our money goes to the institutions.