Seasonal placements will now offer students more of an incentive
Hundreds of summer jobs will be impacted by the increase in Ontario’s minimum wage, said Karen Fast, manager of the Career Centre.
The jobs affected are provided through government run programs such as Summer Experience and the Federal Student Work Experience Program. They provide students with work experience in a government ministry related to their field of study.
“Those jobs are amazing because a lot of them are programs related to the students and they only pay minimum wage,” Karen Fast said. “Those government positions will definitely be affected, and would offer at least a reasonable amount of money to the students.”
The minimum wage in Ontario will be raised to $8.75 per hour from $8 per hour on March 31.
Fast said the biggest impact will be felt by students who work minimum wage jobs in retail.
“A lot of our students have part-time jobs in the retail industry,” she said. “That’s where I see this really benefiting those students because they’re going to see those increases because the employers have to pay them.”
The increase on minimum wage will not have a major impact on Humber faculty and staff because those wages are negotiated and not indexed to minimum wage, said Joanne Maguire, manager of compensation and benefits at Humber College.
Work-study students that get jobs at Humber are already paid over the minimum wage, she said.
“It impacts us in that we stay above it,” Maguire said, “But we don’t have to go and do a whole pile of increases on March 31 because even with the increase, nobody’s under the minimum wage.”
Amy Terrill, a spokesperson for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, said businesses are nervous about the consequences on labour cost.
“It may force some companies to reduce numbers,” she said.
The minimum wage will jump to $9.50 per hour in 2009 and to $10.25 per hour in 2010.http://www.humberetc.com/displayArticle.php?id=798&sid=38
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