How Your Business Can Benefit From the Canada – Ontario Job Grant

Did you know that the Canada – Ontario Job Grant can help you grow your business?

The best thing you can do for your business is to build a strong, agile and easily adaptable workforce. A well-trained workforce can quickly make essential contributions benefiting your company.

Small business owners in Ontario recognize the importance of providing employee training, but are unable to do so due to the financial cost to the company. And that’s where the Canada-Ontario Job Grant makes a difference, by reducing the cost to small businesses. The Canada-Ontario Job Grant provides government funding that can cover up to 66 percent of the expense of eligible third-party training.

The Canada-Ontario Job Grant is the provincial version of the national Canada Job Grant Program that works to provide funding to businesses in most provinces. Further along that goal, the federal government has committed $192 million annually to train Ontario employees during 2014-2020. And the program is open to a wide variety of businesses across multiple industries.

The Canada-Ontario Job Grant: Eligibility Factors

The Canada-Ontario Job Grant was designed with specific goals in mind:

  • to help businesses invest in their workforce by training employees to gain and develop new skills and abilities; and
  • improve workforce employability.

The primary objective of The Canada-Ontario Job Grant is to enable training that will, in turn, lead to an increase in salary, a job title promotion or the retention of a job that would otherwise be at risk of elimination.

To qualify for the Canada-Ontario Job Grant small businesses are required to comply with expenses and training eligibility.

The Canada-Ontario Job Grant: Eligible Training

Unfortunately, not all training is eligible under The Canada-Ontario Job Grant. To be eligible, the training an employee undertakes must provide both the employer and the employee identifiable benefits. Eligible training programs typically include:

  • product vendor training;
  • third-party products, software, etc., training; and
  • recognized college or university courses (this can include recognized private career colleges).

The Canada-Ontario Job Grant: Eligible Expenses

Businesses can receive up to 66 percent of eligible training expenses which include:

  • course tuition and registration fees;
  • course materials and textbooks;
  • software essential to completion of training programs; and
  • third-party trainer expenses.

While the Canada-Ontario Job Grant is not a wage subsidy, small businesses who employ fewer than fifty employees can contribute 50 percent of company contributions in trainee wages. Think of it this way:

A training course that costs $10,000 would be eligible for grants totalling $6,600. The remaining $3,400 portion to be covered by the company can split between $1,700 cash and $1,700 in trainee wages – that are eligible for reimbursement under the Canada-Ontario Job Grant.

So, at the end of the day, that $10,000 training course cost had an out-of-pocket business expense of $1,700 and that’s a great return on your investment.

If you think your small business is eligible for funding through The Canada-Ontario Job Grant and would like to explore ways it can benefit you, contact the staffing specialists at Employment Professionals Canada today. Let their expertise and proven track record help you grow your company.