(Quebec) Are you a college or university student in engineering, information technology or nursing, for example? The Quebec government will give you thousands of dollars in the stock market to encourage you to finish your studies to fight against the labor shortage in certain targeted sectors.
Students can get up to $ 9,000 for technical training at college, and $ 15,000 at university for a three-year program, or $ 20,000 for a four-year program.
The Legault government wants to requalify and attract nearly 170,000 workers in five specific fields.
- 27,000 people in health and social services
- 8000 in education
- 25,000 in educational childcare services
- 55,000 in engineering and information technology
- 55,000 under construction
In Thursday’s budget update, the government unveils part of its plan to get there. It relies on 22,000 immigrants to fill some of these positions. For the rest, it wants to train students, re-qualify workers and attract retirees or people who are not currently in the labor market.
An important part of this strategy is to attract more students to these critical areas. Quebec is announcing a scholarship program, which is in addition to the regular financial assistance program for studies. It plans to invest $ 1.7 billion in a “new incentive scholarship program for students enrolled in programs affecting targeted professions.”
Concretely, all students, even those who have already started their training, will be entitled to this scholarship from the fall session of 2022. The scholarship will be paid after each successful full-time session, i.e. $ 1,500 at college, and $ 2,500 at university.
“All Quebec students in the priority areas identified will be eligible, whether they are at the beginning of the process, in the middle or at the end, as soon as the fall session of 2022”, indicates the document.
The full list of eligible programs will be announced later, as will the fine details of the program. But already, we are assured that students who do not complete their training will not have to reimburse the sums already paid.
Salary premium for retirees
This is not the only measure to tackle the labor shortage. Quebec will set up a temporary wage premium for retirees in certain professions in the public sector, at a cost of 60 million. In short, Quebec will give them directly the sum of money that it normally pays into the pension fund of a regular employee. This is an annual bonus of nearly $ 3,000 for a retiree with a work income of $ 40,000, it is specified.
Quebec targets in particular nurses, orderlies, psychologists, social workers, elementary and secondary teachers and specialized education technicians.
It also adds $ 1 billion over five years to increase the health workforce. This includes, for example, the hiring of administrative officers to free clinicians from administrative tasks that prevent them from providing direct patient care.
Quebec also plans to invest $ 1.1 billion to help the engineering and information technology sectors. This includes the hiring of 500 professors in these cutting-edge sectors, as well as business assistance programs that could, for example, hire staff who are still under study.