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OTTAWA – A high-profile Liberal election pledge designed to encourage employers to hire young people failed to make the cut in last week’s federal budget.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed during the campaign to offer a 12-month holiday on employment insurance premiums to employers who give permanent jobs to people aged 18-24.
The promise was supposed to come into force this year and extend through 2017 and 2018 — but it didn’t even receive a mention in the budget.
Trudeau promoted the idea himself on the campaign trail as a way to address what he described as the extremely high youth unemployment rate.
In announcing the plan during the campaign, Trudeau noted that the Chretien Liberals did something similar in the late 1990s with positive effects.
Trudeau, who is also the federal minister of youth, is scheduled to participate in a roundtable on employment insurance today in Calgary.
