Not So NEET: A Critical Policy Analysis of Ontario\u27s Youth Job Connection Program

The Ontario government has identified youth unemployment as a central societal problem that it seeks to address through policy measures. It has recently switched its focus from assisting all youth towards assisting NEET youth (neither in employment, education or training), as is demonstrated in the current youth employment policy Youth Job Connection (YJC), which began in the fall of 2015. This MRP situates YJC as part of a broader trend away from designing youth policy as an explicit form of social control to a seemingly more positive approach of youth development. Using this example, it showcases the continuities between the social control and youth development models. Specifically, it seeks to answer the question: how does the framing and context surrounding YJC illustrate the limits of this approach in addressing NEET youth unemployment in Ontario? Keeping these questions in mind, I will demonstrate—through a critical policy analysis inspired by a critical political economy theoretical framework—the ways in which the positive youth development model taken up by YJC is failing to meet the needs of Ontario’s young people. Ultimately, the positive youth development model can be seen as a form of social control under the guise of youth development, as it seeks to funnel young people into neoliberal ideals of what a citizen should be: employed, flexible, consistently improving themselves, and perhaps most importantly not questioning the status quo