Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 13/98) - About 55 students have been hired so far by the territorial government for summer jobs.

"That's pretty good out of 250 to 260 resumes ... considering the cutbacks and everything," said Tasha Washylkiw, summer student program co-ordinator between running a resume drop-off depot located in the sixth floor of the Laing Building.

Students have been dropping off or faxing in their resumes at the depot for about a month now.

Washylkiw figures they will receive about 500 resumes within the next month or two.

As the resumes keep coming in, a brief description of each person's skills is entered into a database government departments can access for student employees all summer long.

If hired by the government, students will make between $13 and $17 per hour.

"We've had 136 resume requests from interested departments. They look on the database and say this person has the right skills so they call and ask me to fax over their resumes," said Washylkiw.

But this year, the government is not hiring as many students as they have in previous years, said Washylkiw.

And students who are hired many only be permitted to work part-time in their posting.

"What a few departments are doing this year is they'll hire two students for one job. So one student will work in the mornings and the other student will work in the afternoons. Just to try to give as many jobs as possible to students," she said.

Some students think this is great -- they get to sleep in. Others are not fond of the idea of making less money because they're working part-time, Washylkiw said.

"I think they're just happy to have a government job because the pay is good and since they have the afternoon off or morning off they can do something else, get another job maybe."