Ontario mandatory retirement pension plan hurts youth job prospects, says Restaurants Canada

Toronto – The Ontario government’s plan to move forward with the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) without amending the contribution age will hurt young people in the work force, Restaurants Canada said in a news release.

This decision comes just a day after economist Jack Mintz, who previously advised the Liberal government on HST, stated, “We don’t need a big, fat pension plan in Ontario.”

“Restaurants Canada requested an increase in contribution age from 18 to 25,” said James Rilett, Restaurants Canada Vice-President, Ontario, in the release. “That would help protect youth jobs, and enable young people to save for and contribute to their education, while leaving employers more money to create first-time jobs.”

If ORPP is introduced, employers in the restaurant industry will pay an extra $78 million in payroll taxes a year.

On average, the ORPP would cost a young person working in a part-time job $300 a year. Raising the contribution age to 25 would have a nominal impact on their future pension income and would have the valuable impact of helping them get the work experience they need now, the association said.

Ontario’s youth unemployment rate is stuck at 14.6 per cent, almost three times the adult rate. Twenty-eight per cent of unemployed youth have never held a job of any kind.

Restaurants in Ontario directly employ more than 458,000 people in Ontario, 6.7 per cent of the province’s workforce. Nearly 200,000 of those people are between the ages of 15 and 24, which represents one in five youth jobs in Ontario.

“We all know how hard it can be for teenagers to find their first jobs,” said Rilett. “The ORPP will make it even harder.”

Read details about the ORRP.