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Over 77,000 to have placements through Canada Summer Jobs program

The federal government says it has approved more than 7,000 additional jobs for the Canada Summer Jobs program on top of the 70,000 planned for 2016.

Among the hires are a number of newly arrived Syrian refugees, aboriginals, and youth with disabilities, although the exact breakdown of those figures is not immediately available.

The government had pledged in the budget to add $339 million over three years to the summer jobs program to double the number of placements each year for students working at not-for-profit organizations, public sector employers and small businesses with 50 or fewer employees.

Applications from small businesses to hire summer students through the government program was up almost one-third from last year.

In all, there will be 13,373 students working at small businesses this summer, a four-fold increase from last year.