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The Toronto Financial Services Alliance (TFSA) is launching a pilot program aimed at boosting young Canadians’ employment prospects in a bid to address a looming labour shortage in the financial services sector.

The program, known as ASPIRE, was designed with the help of a handful of universities, colleges, banks and government stakeholders and hopes to offer 10,000 new work-related learning opportunities to undergraduate students over a three-year period, or by the end of 2020.

This initiative, which was developed by the TFSA, represents the first of several work-integrated learning pilot programs initiated by the Business Council of Canada’s business/higher education roundtable. It will create an avenue for youth to gain hands-on experience through internships, co-op placements, incubator and accelerator programs.

ASPIRE comes at a time when the quality of jobs for young Canadians has steadily declined, even as youth unemployment levels have remained relatively stable since the mid 1970s, according to a report from Statistics Canada published in 2016.

“As the financial services sector continues to reinvent itself in response to dramatic technological disruption, our employer members are telling us that there is an increasing number of new positions waiting to be filled,” says Janet Ecker, president and CEO of TFSA, in a statement. “At the same time, our academic members tell us that bright, highly skilled graduates are finding it hard to find jobs. It’s our job to bridge that gap.”

Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Sun Life Financial Inc., Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Bank of Nova Scotia, among others, were involved in designing the program and have pledged to open up training opportunities for students at their respective firms.

“This initiative will see an acceleration in our support at a time when young people need access to experiential learning more than ever,” says Dave McKay, president and CEO of RBC, in a statement. “Work-integrated learning improves the value of education and it increases innovation.”

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