ROSETOWN, Sask. – A youth employment centre in Rosetown will not open this summer because of government cuts.
Betty Groves, spokesperson for Entrepreneurs 2000, which had run the centre in Rosetown, said the Saskatoon region, to which Rosetown belonged, received no federal government funding this year to open youth employment centres.
The Yorkton and Melfort regions received approval for two projects and the Regina region received approval for one project, compared to the 10 centres that were open last year in Saskatchewan.
Roger Butt, director of the federal government’s Youth Initiatives Programs, said the department decided that youth centres run by individuals were duplicating the student employment centres opened each summer by Human Resources Canada. So it decided the program funds could no longer be used to open youth job centres. Instead, they will be used to help businesses hire students.
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Butt said students living in rural areas away from these centres can access job opportunities on-line at www.jobbank.gc.ca/.
The HRDC student centres are in 11 towns and cities in Saskatchewan, 14 in Manitoba and 15 in Alberta.
Groves said the funding cuts “will affect at least 100 students just in our area, not to mention across the province. I think it is a real shame.”
Almost 60 students were placed in full-time, part-time and odd job positions in the Rosetown area in 2001. Because of the drought, only 43 students found work through the centre in 2002, mainly in odd jobs.
