State of the BC Economy
As we close out 2012, BC finds itself in some precarious economic waters. To recap, a massive housing bubble that built up through the naughties (2000s) finally burst in 2008,…
labour market
The Harper Government’s New Math
Every time this government crows about its job creation record, I cringe. They have moved the finish line and declared victory. No reason to worry about the unemployed here, folks.…
Welcome to the Wageless Recovery
The Harper government likes to remind Canadians that we’ve done better than most developed nations in bouncing back from the global economic crisis. But digging into the data shows why…
The Limits of Demography
Here is a piece I wrote for today’s Globe Economy Lab re the Department of Finance report on the costs of an aging society. The key point is that the…
Time to Rethink The Way We Fund Higher Education
This September, like every year, a new group of high school graduates headed to college or university to pursue higher education. But today’s generation of students is in for a…
Three Cheers for the Fraser Institute!
At times, the Fraser Institute produces such helpful material. I hope they make their well-heeled funders, such as the multi billionaire Koch brothers, proud. However, I’m sure the Kochs are…
Measuring Youth Unemployment
Miles Corak has a great post up about Paul Krugman’s “favourite gauge” of unemployment, the employment rate. Looking at the ratio of employed to population for working age men, he…
The End of Men?
The Globe and Mail on Saturday devoted two pages of its Focus section to a discussion of Hanna Rosin’s book, The End of Men. There are a few interesting anecdotes…
Tax Cuts, Dead Money, and Lackluster Jobs Growth
Over the past year, the Canadian labour force has grown by 185,000 people, but we have only added 176,600 jobs. The population grew by 1.2%, but employment only grew by…
Unionization and Labour Market Performance
Further to my earlier post on the “own goal” scored by the Fraser Institute report on North American labour markets, the Table below shows the rankings of the Canadian provinces…
Labour Market Regulation and Labour Market Performance
A release by the Fraser Institute – Measuring Labour Markets in Canada and the United States, 2012 Edition – registers as a spectacular own goal. The Fraser Institute believes –…
Broadening the Bank of Canada’s Mandate
Yesterday, Mike Moffatt took to The Globe and Mail’s “Economy Lab” in response to my suggestion that the Bank of Canada should moderate the exchange rate. (Perhaps his motive for…
The Right Response to “No Job Is A Bad Job”
Last May federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said there was no such thing as a bad job. The Law Commission of Ontario may disagree. This week it put out a…
Canada’s Economic Problem is NOT High Wages
Bill Curry reports in today’s Globe that, at last year’s economic policy retreat, business leaders urged Finance Minister Flaherty to reduce the pay of “overpriced” Canadian workers, including through anti…
A Breakdown of the Job Losses
Further to Angella’s post, after two months of treading water, Canada lost 30,000 jobs in July. The increase in unemployment was limited to 22,000 only because 8,000 people abandoned the…
July Job Numbers Fall
Statistics Canada’s monthly job numbers are out, and it doesn’t look great. After big jumps in March and April, there was little change in May and June. In July, total…
Alberta’s Bogus Labour Shortage
The following is a guest post by the Alberta Federation of Labour’s Tony Clark: A labour shortage occurs when the demand for labour exceeds the supply of labour, right? Well,…
Baskin-Robbins and the Walmartization of Ice Cream
It’s been an unusually hot summer, and soaring temperatures have boosted sales of that quintessential summer food, ice cream. But Baskin-Robbins has decided to shut its production facility in Peterborough,…
Labour Losing to Capital
The just-released OECD Employment Outlook – full text not available on line – has an interesting chapter on the sharp decline of labour’s share of national income in virtually all…
Youth employment trends
As a follow-up to my last post, where I showed R7 – the unemployment rate that includes involuntary part-time, I was curious what the longer term trend was regarding youth…