Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the summer of 2013 the GNWT hired 280 students. The hiring of students is the same as the hiring of all GNWT employees using the Affirmative Action Policy, except that for the summer students we have better numbers than we do across the board for the permanent jobs. Over 50 percent of
the students hired in the summertime were priority 1 candidates.
Currently the system works where the departments and agencies determined where they wish to place the summer students and, in fact, not in the hands of the Department of Human Resources, but each of the departments will be asked to hire as many students as possible, trying to get up and around 300 students for the summer, depending on how much room there would be in our PY budget to hire summer students. So, often the process is that they will try to match the summer student with the studies that they are in school for as close as possible or with actually in the relevant subject and relevant field that the student is studying in the South.
I recognize that the Member’s issue has been brought up in the past and that we can, as a department, make contact with all of the departments, advising them that they should be looking equally at the jobs outside of the major centres as they do inside of the major centres and try to match some of these students in the smaller communities as well. Thank you.