Announced in Waterloo on Sept. 25th, FedDev Ontario has launched the Graduate Enterprise Internship, an $80M initiative, a new hiring funding program for science, technical, engineering and math graduates and undergraduates to support mentorship and development with local SMEs in Southern Ontario.
The program will support up to $15,000 of the costs of a six-month internship for someone who is doing a masters or PhD program and up to $10,000 for someone who has finished an undergraduate program at a post-secondary institution in southern Ontario within the last five years. Employers still have to pay at least 50 per cent of the costs of hiring the person including CPP & EI expenses. The internship program will support a 6 month work term for the graduate or undergraduate candidate.
Interns will typically participate in only one internship through the initiative. Internships are not intended to extend those funded by other organizations such as Youth Employment Program and SBIP.
Eligible employers are those that are operating in STEM (science, technical, engineering and math) fields, located in Southern Ontario and have less than 1000 employees.
Small and medium sized employers are responsible to connect with their Career Service groups at the local Colleges or Universities for the selection of the graduates. The program will be administered through non-profit educational institiutions over the next four years. This program will run in conjuction with MITACS.
If you are interested in extending your network into the interested universities and colleges that have been approved to administer this program, please do not hesitate to contact me at info@mentorworks.ca or by phone at 519-497-8584 for assistance in gaining one of the 5000 graduates.