Grants are available for small business recruitment activities to ensure companies have employees with the right skills and capabilities to support ongoing and future business plans. Funding programs help organizations hire or retrain staff, improve employee effectiveness, and support training in new areas such as advanced technologies or operational processes.
Hiring and Training
Behind every successful business is a strong and qualified team. These grants and incentives can help fund the hiring, training, and retention of your workforce to ensure success.
Eligible Activities
EVAMAX Services
If your business requires assistance with any of the following hiring/ training activities, contact a funding expert to get your application started:
Wage subsidies
Hiring new graduates
Co-ops
Apprentices
Collaboration with universities for research
Candidate training
Improve diversity hiring
Funding Program for Hiring & training
| Funding Programs | About the Program | Region | Learn More |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alberta Innovates – Commercialization Associates | This program provides funding to businesses to enable them to hire a commercialization professional to advance their business readiness level and accelerate commercialization. | AB | |
| Alberta Innovates – Industry R&D Associates Program | This program provides funding to businesses to enable them to hire a research and development professional to advance their technology in order to accelerate commercialization. | AB | |
| Canada Ontario Job Grant | This program helps employers invest in training for current and future employees, with the goal of increasing Ontario’s labour force through skill development. Through this program, the employer applies on behalf of their employee(s) for eligible training costs. | ON | |
| NRC IRAP – Funding to Hiring Young Graduates | This program focuses on supporting companies in hiring youth workers (age between 15-30 years) to contribute to their innovation efforts. The internships should be 6-12 months in length and within Canada; the program will share a portion of the salary costs, not including overhead costs and incentives | Canada-wide | |
| Magnet Student Work Placement Program | The Student Work Placement program connects employers, students, and post-secondary school stakeholders to create quality work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities. The student can be from any program of study, and there is no restriction on the type of position. | Canada-wide | |
| Talent Opportunities Program (TOP) | This program connects employers, students, and post-secondary school stakeholders to create quality work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities. The placement must be a “Net New” placement which are positions that are incremental and are above what employers were able to hire the year before at the similar time. | Canada-wide | |
| Empowering Futures Program | The Empowering Futures Program is Canada’s Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) for the electricity industry. Aimed at preparing students for the future of work, the program helps to create new work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities in electricity by providing subsidies of up to the employers who create these new opportunities. | Canada-wide | |
| The Technation Career Ready Program (formerly ITAC) | This program supports businesses by helping finance the hire of a student for a work-term placement. Technation support any tech-immersive roles. You do not need to be a tech company to provide tech skills development. | Canada-wide | |
| Subsidized Digital Tech Internships | The program provides employers with 500 employees or less with wage subsidies to hire young (age 15-30) post-secondary graduates in a position within a digital field. This program is currently closed. | Canada-wide | |
| ICTC’s WIL Digital | This program offers subsidies to employers who create work opportunities for students. WIL Digital creates industry-education partnerships and explores innovative work-integrated learning models. | Canada-wide | |
| ECO Canada Student Work Placement Program | This program is a part of Government of Canada’s Student Work Placement Program (SWAPP). It is targeted to the positions in the environmental sector and students in a STEM, arts, or business program. Net new refers to positions that are incremental and are above what employers were able to hire the year before at the similar time. | Canada-wide | |
| Level UP STEM Projects | This program allows employers to bring on Canadian post-secondary students for 80-hour paid STEM projects. | Canada-wide | |
| Co-Operative Education Tax Credit | This tax credit is applied for along with corporate taxes. For any prior year tax credits that were not applied for, an amendment can be requested within 3 years of the initial assessment. This program applies to students that are hired in a co-op program from an Ontario university/college. | Canada-wide | |
| Canada Alberta Job Grant | This program helps employers finance training for current and future employees, in hopes to increase Alberta’s labour force through skill development. Through this program, the employer applies on behalf of their employee(s) for eligible training costs. | AB | |
| TECTERRA – HIRE Program | This program provides funding for businesses that hire highly qualified personnel for development or commercialization purposes aimed to help Canadian Geospatial technology companies achieve commercial success. The Focus is on projects that can create jobs, contribute to company growth, and diversify the economy. | Canada-wide | |
| Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium | Through the Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium, the Government of Canada delivers the Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) to Canada's manufacturing sectors. | Canada-wide | |
| Digital Skills for Youth Program ECO Canada | This program offers funding for employers who are hiring youth who are unemployed or underemployed post-secondary graduates. The goal is to promote the development of digital and soft skills through work experience and training. Funding is available for positions with a Digital Skill focus in the environmental sector. This program is currently closed. | Canada-wide | |
| Canada Summer Jobs | Canada Summer Jobs is an initiative of the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, which aims to provide flexible and holistic services to help all young Canadians develop the skills and gain paid work experience to successfully transition into the labour market. | Canada-wide | |
| Mitacs Accelerate | This program aims to connect top-ranked research talent with industrial partners to help solve the company’s research challenges. Internships must be 4 months at minimum and can be scaled up as needed. | Canada-wide | |
| ICTC’s Digital Skills for Youth Program | This program connects Canadian employers with university and college graduates between 18-30 years old to receive training and meaningful work experience to help transition to full-time employment. This program is currently closed. | Canada-wide | |
| Youth Employment Placement Program | This program supports the hire of youth (e.g. 30 years old or younger) in STEM or natural resources related roles in the environmental sector. The funding is for paid full-time work terms between 6-12 months in length. This program is currently closed. | Canada-wide | |
| NSERC Engage | This program provides businesses knowledge, expertise and capabilities available from Canadian universities and colleges. These grants are intended to foster the development of new research partnerships by supporting short-term research and development projects aimed at addressing a company-specific problem. | Canada-wide | |
| Industry Commercialization Associates Program | This program was created to assist Alberta small or medium-sized businesses commercialize innovative technologies. The program financially supports employees with expertise in commercializing novel technology. | AB | |
| NOHFC People and Talent Program – Workforce Development Stream | The People & Talent Program is designed to attract, retain and develop Northern Ontario’s workforce. This program is meant to strengthen and develop Northern Ontario’s workforce through business partnerships by offering internships. | ON | |
| NOHFC People and Talent Program – Indigenous Workforce Development Stream | The People & Talent Program is designed to attract, retain and develop Northern Ontario’s workforce. This program is meant to strengthen and develop Northern Ontario’s Indigenous workforce through business partnerships by offering internships to Indigenous persons. | ON | |
| TalentEdge Internship Program (TIP) – AVIN | The TalentEdge Internship Program (TIP) stream of the AVIN program provides support for current college and university students and recent undergraduate or Masters graduates, to work on industry driven research and development projects related to Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (C/AV) technologies. | ON | |
| ENCQOR 5G TalentEdge Interships | This program provides support for current college and university students and recent graduates, to work on industry-driven research and development projects related to 5G, wireless and digital technologies at Ontario-based SMEs. This program is currently closed. | ON | |
| NOHFC INVEST North Program – Grow Stream | The Invest North Program is designed to boost economic growth in Northern Ontario by encouraging businesses to invest in transformative, strategic and complementary business development opportunities in Northern communities. The program will support productivity, innovation, business competitiveness, revenue growth, export capacity development, job creation and retention. | ON | |
| Industry R&D Associates Program | This program provides funding to businesses to enable them to hire a research and development professional to advance their technology in order to accelerate commercialization. | AB |
Explore Funding for Other Expenditures
Investment, Growth & Capacity Expansion; Technology Adoption, Scale up
R&D; Development & Improvement of new technology, products & processes
Sales & Marketing of Technology, Exports, Growth & Competitiveness
