Victoria Moore and Asia Jong are vouching for the government because federal politicians helped the students lock down summer jobs. 

Both UBCO students are benefitting from the Canada Summer Jobs program, which provides funding to businesses so they can afford to high summer students. 

Photo Credit: Asia Jong, left, is working with Victoria Moore, right, at the Kelowna Art Gallery this summer.

"[The Canada Summer Jobs Program] is incredibly important. I know many people who have fallen into the trap of too much education, too little experience,” Moore told KelownaNow.

“That experience is absolutely vital. The experience will actually get you the job and take you the rest of the way to be employed.”

Moore is majoring in Visual Arts and minoring in Art History, while Jong is majoring in Art History. The two friends didn’t plan to work together this summer, but are happy they are.

They are working at the Kelowna Art Gallery with Art Adventures, the Gallery’s summer art camps.

Photo Credit: KelownaNow.comBardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, spoke in Kelowna on Tuesday morning.

During a press conference on Tuesday morning, Kelowna-Lake Country MP Stephen Fuhr and Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, spoke about Canada's job market. 

"The reality is Canada's youth are facing real challenges. They're having a hard time finding good jobs and our government wants to help them overcome this challenge," Chagger said.

"They can't get a job because they don't have work experience, and they can't get work experience because they don't have a job."

The federal government has committed to funding 70,000 summer jobs each summer until 2018. This year already the government has provided funding for 77,000 jobs.

Of those 77,000, 7,779 are in British Columbia and 203 are in Kelowna.

The Canada Summer Jobs program will cover the full wage for summer employees for not-for-profit organizations. Public sector and small businesses will be funded up to 50 per cent of the cost of wages, provided the business has less than 50 employees.

Even though Jong and Moore have only been working at the Kelowna Art Gallery since June, they’ve already gained experience and learned a lot.

"I feel like this point and transition, starting to ween out of university is really crucial because it's a lot more difficult to gain access to these sort of jobs after we graduate,” Jong told KelownaNow.

“Right now is the perfect opportunity for us to gain the experience to go out into our field."