Backgrounder: Canada Job Surge Plan

Canada’s Conservatives will recover the one million jobs lost since the start of the pandemic by focusing on the hardest-hit sectors, incentivizing businesses to hire, reducing regulatory burden, and reforming our tax system to reward work.

As part of Canada’s Recovery Plan, a Conservative government will provide a 25 per cent subsidy for all net new hires for six months.

Conservatives will provide an additional top-up of up to 25 per cent if a business hires from among those who have been out of work for longer periods. The additional 25 per cent top-up will mean that the wage subsidy will be: 

• 30% for a new hire who has been unemployed for six months;
• 35% for a new hire who has been unemployed for seven months;
• 40% for a new hire who has been unemployed for eight months;
• 45% for a new hire who has been unemployed for nine months; and
• 50% for a new hire who has been unemployed for 10 months or more.

The salary maximum will be the same as for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) (a maximum salary of $1,129 per week).

For example, if a company goes from 10 to 15 employees, Conservatives will subsidize 25 per cent of the wage of the five new employees. This subsidy would represent up to $35,000 in savings for the business hiring five people, up to $70,000 if they are hiring people who have been unemployed for several months, money that could be re-invested growing the business and creating more jobs.

All companies in Canada will be eligible for this subsidy regardless of revenue loss.

The employment baseline for counting net new hires will be the company’s average employment in April, May, and June 2021. 

The program will be coordinated with the end of the CEWS program. 

Quick Facts

• By the end of 2019, growth in the economy had slowed to almost zero, productivity had been flat for two consecutive years, and business investments as a per cent of GDP hit a 25-year low.
• When the pandemic hit, Canada saw the unemployment rate soar from 5.7 per cent to 13.7 per cent.
• As of July 2021, Canada’s unemployment rate sits at 7.5 per cent, the second-highest in the G7 and two per cent above the average G7 unemployment rate. There are 1.5 million unemployed Canadians.
• Research shows that when a worker has been unemployed for more than six months, it’s more difficult to find a new job. When they do find employment, it’s often at a lower level of pay than their previous employment. For people unemployed for more than one year, it’s even harder to find a new job.
• The Liberal government has missed their jobs recovery target by an alarming 250,000 jobs.

Source: New feed
Backgrounder: Canada Job Surge Plan