The federal government is basing labour market policy on the belief that, as Jason Kenney pithily puts it in today’s Globe, there are “large and growing labour shortages.” Hence moves to bring in even more temporary foreign workers at lower than average wages, and to push EI claimants into supposedly
Continue readingTag: unemployment
Left Over: Plenty of Jobs in Alberta (Alberta!!!) says Emperor Steve’s Puppet, Flaherty
Here’s good ol’ boy Flaherty warning Canadians that EI will be changed to reflect Alberta and Saskatchewan’s need for labour…as if the government was financing EI in the first place.. They aren’t – it’s financed by employers and labour…not that this has stopped any government from tinkering with the program
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: a tiny glimpse into the ways our government serves the corporate and financial world, not the people of Canada
Some Key Areas Where Neoliberal Policy Undermines both the Industrial Economy and Canadian Democracy Under the Harper Regime, the investor class is constantly being protected at the expense of the real industrial economy, for just about all policy decisions privilege both the financial sector, with its market-driven initiatives and debt-driven
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Jobs: Ontario Left Behind
Statistics Canada reported today that April was another good month for the labour market. The Canadian economy added 58,200 jobs, most of which were full-time and all of which were paid positions rather than reported self-employment. Paradoxically, official unemployment increased as more Canadians entered the labour market. This development provides
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Corak in Context
Professor Miles Corak had a post on The Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab yesterday comparing measures of unemployment in Canada and the U.S. I remember learning in Economics 100 that the official Canadian and American unemployment rates are not directly comparable, in part because Statistics Canada includes 15-year-olds whereas the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Who’s a bigger drag on Canada’s future? The old or the young?
This is my latest column for Canadian Business magazine. Giorgio, a hard-working, smart-as-a-whip University of Toronto student, asked me a great question after a recent guest lecture: What if the biggest challenge facing Canadian businesses and governments in the coming years isn’t an aging society but the economic and fiscal
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Real Unemployment Rate = 11.3%
Statistics Canada reported significant employment growth today for the first time in six months. As Andrew has already noted, welcome strength in March does not make up for the five preceding months of stagnation. Compared to September 2011, full-time employment has increased by 21,900 while Canada’s labour force and population
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Budget 2012: Pennywise But Pound Foolish
Marc, Andrew and Toby have posted substantial analyses of yesterday’s federal budget, but here are my two cents about its economic forecasts. Table 2.1 envisions a 7.5% unemployment rate this year, slightly above last year’s rate of 7.4%. That seems like an admission of failure from a budget ostensibly about
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Below 40% of the Unemployed Get EI
Statistics Canada reported today that 12,400 more Canadians received Employment Insurance (EI) regular benefits in January. The increase in recipients reflected higher unemployment. Indeed, the proportion of jobless workers receiving benefits remained 39% (i.e. 561,060 beneficiaries out of 1,421,200 officially unemployed Canadians.) Only 28% of unemployed Ontarians received EI benefits
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: More on Declining Labour Force Participation
As a supplement to the excellent (and more timely!) posts from Andrew and Erin this morning, let me add a few points on the most striking feature of today’s Labour Force Survey: namely, the accelerating decline in labour force participation. The part rate (seasonally adjusted) fell to 66.5% of the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Labour Force Exodus
Statistics Canada reported this morning that 38,000 people gave up looking for work in February. The official unemployment rate fell because these Canadians were no longer counted as being unemployed. However, this huge withdrawal from the labour force is a sign of weakness in the job market. Most of those
Continue readingShould Ontario Become an Independent Country?
Ok just forget how crazy the questions sounds. The recent wrangling between Ontario and Alberta over the value of the Canadian dollar, oil output and the decline of manufacturing in Ontario (and other provinces east of Ontario) raises some reasonable … Continue reading →
Continue readingknitnut.net: New Job
The place I’ve been working since September – Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation – is great. It’s a private non-profit housing organization, and I was a tenant of theirs for years. I’ve always liked the organization, and I couldn’t ask for better colleagues. But, it was always intended to be a
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: EI Shrank by 100,000 in 2011
Statistics Canada reported today that the number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance rose by 4,230 in December, a month in which unemployment rose by 6,100. The proportion of unemployed workers receiving benefits remained below 39% (i.e. 544,720 beneficiaries out of 1.4 million unemployed). Although December saw relatively little change in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Federal cuts could push unemployment to 8%
Now that the government is planning for an $8 billion cut, the potential job losses could drive job losses to between 99,000 and 108,000 full time positions across Canada. At this much higher level, the federal government could be single-handedly responsible for pushing national unemployment from its current 7.5% to
Continue readingGordon V Jackson: the corporate tax cut myth
Apparently Stephen Gordon is having a hard time figuring out where Andrew Jackson, the chief economist for the CLC, got the bizarre idea that: The argument for corporate income tax cuts has been that increased after-tax corporate profits would be … Continue reading →
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A changing psychology of economics
My 96 year old grandmother, after selling the old family farm late in her life, doesn’t need to worry about money. Yet, she worries about it constantly going to great lengths to save every possible penny. She is a child of the depression – which she speaks of whenever she
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Job Vacancies vs. Unemployment
Progressive economists have advocated expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to boost demand and create jobs, given the high rate of unemployment. By contrast, employers and conservative commentators complain of unfilled vacancies and labour shortages, emphasizing policies to increase labour supply and labour mobility. Today’s new Statistics Canada survey of job
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: EI Benefits Decline Amid Rising Unemployment
Today, Statistics Canada reported that the number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance (EI) benefits fell for a third consecutive month in November. This decline would be good news if it reflected an improving labour market. Unfortunately, unemployment has also increased for three consecutive months. The trend is a dwindling number
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy
December marked the three-year anniversary of Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. While I believe there is much to celebrate, much remains to be done. The Strategy surprised a lot of observers, especially in light of the fact that it was announced in December 2008, just as Ontario was entering a recession.
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