Question 1

What is YESS Youth Focused Projects (Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS) Program – Youth Focused Projects) and who is it for?

Accepted Answer

Federal umbrella strategy (delivered by ESDC in partnership with 11 other federal departments/agencies/Crown corporations) funding ORGANIZATIONS — not individual employers — to deliver work experience, training, skills development, mentorship, and wraparound supports (e.g. dependant care, mental health counselling) helping youth aged 15–30 facing barriers to employment find and keep quality jobs. Distinct from nrc_irap_yep and venture_for_canada_intern, which are wage subsidies paid TO an employer to hire one youth — this program funds a non-profit to run a youth-serving PROJECT. Typical applicant: Manitoba non-profits, charities, or community organizations designing a youth work-experience, training, or mentorship project — NOT individual for-profit SMEs looking to hire one youth (those should look at nrc_irap_yep, venture_for_canada_intern, or canada_summer_jobs instead)

Question 2

Who qualifies for YESS Youth Focused Projects?

Accepted Answer

⚠️ Not a direct-to-employer wage subsidy — funds organizations delivering youth-serving projects, not individual businesses hiring one youth Eligible recipient types: not-for-profit organizations (incl. registered charities, voluntary organizations, foundations), municipal governments, Indigenous organizations (incl. band councils, tribal councils, self-government entities), for-profit organizations ONLY if the funded activity itself is non-commercial and not intended to generate a profit, public health/educational/cultural institutions, and provincial/territorial governments, institutions, agencies, and Crown corporations Maximum funding: $5 million per project per year; established limit of $50,000 per youth participant per project (covers career counselling, training, mentoring, coaching, wraparound supports, admin costs, staff wages — disability-related costs are excluded from this cap) Projects run 1–4 years (12–48 months) and are categorized as National (delivered in 3+ provinces/territories) or Regional (1–2 provinces/territories) Quebec-established organizations may only apply through the National component (3+ provinces/territories) — the Regional component excludes Quebec since Canada funds the Government of Quebec directly for equivalent provincial programming Youth with Disabilities Stream: a target of 20% of funded projects focus on serving youth with disabilities

Question 3

Is YESS Youth Focused Projects currently open for applications?

Accepted Answer

Umbrella strategy — Canada Summer Jobs (see canada_summer_jobs) and the Student Work Placement Program (which funds venture_for_canada_intern) are delivered under this same YESS umbrella but have their own distinct intake/eligibility and are catalogued separately. Eligibility/funding-cap facts above are fetch+compared against real page content (live canada.ca returns HTTP 403 to automated fetch, confirmed via both WebFetch and direct curl 2026-07-18; content instead pulled from a Wayback Machine snapshot of this exact URL dated 2026-05-12 — see sourceFetchBlocked). The 2026-06-10 CFP closure date (intakeDeadline below) is NOT from that same snapshot — it's corroborated only via two independent WebSearch passes over canada.ca's own domain, so treat the closure date itself as slightly lower-confidence than the eligibility/funding facts. An earlier version of this entry also cited a '$30,000 one-time top-up for data collection' that does NOT appear anywhere in the fetched page content — removed as unconfirmed (2026-07-18) rather than left in as an unverified dollar figure. Intake closed 2026-06-10 — next intake date not yet announced. Confirm current status directly with the program.