Thinking about recruiting more staff? You could get a percentage of their salary covered through hiring grants! Our partners over at Granted Consulting have compiled some of the best hiring grants for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Over their 10+ years of experience in helping small and medium-sized businesses with grants in Western Canada, they’ve found some common themes with hiring grants. For one, most hiring grants are focused on youth employment opportunities (i.e. recent graduates or students). Hiring grant applications also tend to fill up pretty quickly, so it’s important to apply as soon as you can or get help from a grant expert to make sure you take full advantage of funding.
Overview: This federal program provides funding to hire a university or college student in Canada to conduct a research project that addresses a business’s needs.
Grant Value: 50% of hiring costs are covered for up to $7,500 per 4 to 6 month unit.
Eligible Employers: Canadian for-profit or non-profit organizations of any size, for-profit organizations outside of Canada, and Intern-owned startups at an approved incubator.
Eligible Participants: Full-time students at a Canadian post-secondary institution OR full-time graduate students from France, Israel, or Norway. Employees must be Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or international students and must not have more than 6 months of post-graduation work experience.
Placement Details: The internship must be for at least 4 months and include at least one intern travelling to or from a Canadian university or partner organization.
Bonus: If you’re a student entrepreneur, there’s also the Mitacs Accelerate Entrepreneur Program designed specifically for students that work at their own company.
Overview: This program provides funding to hire a post-secondary student for a tech-focused role in either IT (e.g. software, programming, or web development) or business (e.g. sales, business development, or marketing).
Grant Value: 75% of hiring costs are covered for up to $7,500 per student.
Eligible Employers: Must be a registered Canadian business or organization. Employers can be private, non-profit, municipal, hospital, and post-secondary organizations in both tech and non-tech identified industries.
Eligible Participants: Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or protected persons defined by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Employees must be registered as a full-time student in a Canadian post-secondary institution program.
Placement Details: The position must be no more than 16 weeks long and represent an additional placement compared to the number of students hired in the previous fiscal year.
Overview: This federal program provides funds to hire (and train) recent post-secondary graduates for positions relating to digital technology.
Grant Value: 100% wage subsidy for up to $30,000 plus up to $4,000 in training costs covered per placement.
Eligible Employers: Canadian for-profit and non-profit organizations (or their subsidiaries) that have no more than 500 employees.
Eligible Participants: Interns must be Canadian citizens, permanent residents or protected persons defined by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. They can be no more than 30 years old and must have a post-secondary diploma or degree as well as some basic digital skills knowledge.
Placement Details: The position must be in a digital field (and/or support the digitization of the organization and/or its products or processes), be full-time (at least 30 hours per week), and last for 6-8 months.
Bonus: Career Launcher is also offering Clean Tech Internships for positions relating to clean technology, ImpAct Internships for positions that align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Natural Resources Internships for positions within the natural resource sectors.
While this list does feature some of the best hiring grants in BC, this is only a fraction of what’s available. If you’re looking for more options or if you want to see what type of grant(s) would work best for your organization, check out Granted Consulting. They know everything there is to know about Canadian grants and manage the entire grant application process for small and medium-sized businesses, including research, writing, and claim. To find out how much funding your business qualifies for, you can fill out their Grant Calculator.