UPDATE (September 29): Quoted by The Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, and Canadian Press . . . A recent inquiry for a NOW Magazine article has inspired me to use the July Employment Insurance (EI) figures, released this morning, to examine how this program serves Canadian cities. However, I begin with a national overview of the numbers and […]
Read moreJanice MacKinnon’s op-ed on Employment Insurance (EI) in Monday’s National Post read almost as if it had been written before the economic crisis. There was no mention of mass layoffs or rising unemployment, let alone proposals to enhance EI in response to these trends. Instead, she sees the biggest problem with EI as being the supposed drag on labour mobility […]
Read moreThe OECD released an interesting short report today on how Canada compares to other countries in terms of the job impacts of the crisis. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/62/10/43707194.pdf They project that our unemployment rate will increase by more than in any previous recession to about 10% in 2010 and will likely take a long time to fall. They note a strong link between […]
Read moreLayoffs Continue Today’s Labour Force Survey indicates that full-time employment declined by 4,000 in August. There were 7,000 fewer jobs in goods-producing industries. Retailers Hire A surprising 21,000 new jobs in retail and wholesale trade propelled economy-wide employment up by 27,000. This increase consisted entirely of part-time jobs. While any employment gain is welcome news, the quality of these new […]
Read moreA key justification for small-business tax breaks is that small enterprises are supposedly engines of job creation. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ (CFIB) oft-repeated claim that “small- and medium-size businesses employ more than half the workforce” (PDF) cites Statistics Canada’s Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours. A closer examination of that Survey casts doubt on this statement, the quantity […]
Read moreBenjamin Tal over at CIBC thinks there is good news to be found in the fact that the average duration of unemployment is not rising much despite the fact that unemployment is rising rapidly. As reported in a green shoots kind of good news story by the Globe and Mail In dramatic contrast to past recessions and the current situation […]
Read moreToday’s Labour Force Survey indicates that employers paid 79,000 fewer Canadians in July. However, a surge of workers declaring self-employment or abandoning the workforce altogether left 9,000 fewer Canadians officially unemployed. Self-Employment Many Canadians are turning to self-employment due to a lack of jobs. Self-employment rose by 35,000 in July, reaching another all-time high. As a result, the net decrease […]
Read moreToday’s job numbers are a clear sign that, far from entering a recovery, the Canadian economy is still in free-fall. This was the first month of the third quarter, the quarter in which the Bank of Canada expects positive GDP growth to resume . But, over the past two months, the number of employees has fallen by 124,000 or one […]
Read moreThe worst news in today’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures is that new benefit claims hit a record high. Rising numbers of unemployed workers and hence EI beneficiaries are an unsurprising result of a deteriorating labour market. However, the increase the number of new EI claims suggests that the pace of deterioration is worsening rather than easing. Despite signs of a nascent […]
Read moreHere’s the link to the second issue of the CLC publication “Recession Watch” detailing recent labour market developments http://canadianlabour.ca/sites/clc/files/Recession-Watch-02-EN.pdf
Read moreJim has written a couple of posts about “the current mini wave of industrial unrest in Canada.” My union recently joined the fray by striking against Vale Inco. While several prominent strikes have recently captured Canadian headlines, I wondered whether the economic crisis has actually led to more labour disputes. On the one hand, concessionary demands from employers typically provoke […]
Read moreAfter many months in which tens of thousands of jobs disappeared, the revelation that “only” 7,400 fewer Canadians were working in June may seem like good news. But this relatively small decline in total employment masks more ominous trends. Self-Employment In June, employers eliminated 44,600 paid positions in Canada, but 37,200 more Canadians declared themselves to be self-employed. This development […]
Read moreFurther to my recent post about the current mini wave of industrial unrest in Canada, and who should wear the blame for it… Now we have the latest developments at Air Canada, where the Machinists local has rejected a tentative multi-union agreement which would have deferred Air Canada’s pension contributions in hopes of seeing the company through the recession. Here’s […]
Read moreThe economy is in trouble, and millions of people around the world are suffering (in various ways and to various extremes), because of the failure of a deregulated profit-driven private-sector financial industry. I think that statement is largely unquestionable. You would think, logically, that this fact should put the free-market private sector on the defensive. Ironically, however, the reverse seems […]
Read moreErin Weir had a highly useful post on this subject a few days ago. Now here’s a chance to take some action: The Centre for Research on Work and Society at York is circulating the Open Statement below regarding the U.S. debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, and certain arguments that have been made in that debate regarding Canadian […]
Read moreSo says a new paper by UBC economist Phil Oreopoulos, Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labor Market? A Field Experiment with Six Thousand Resumes. As a skilled immigrant with a non-Anglo sounding name I find this quite disturbing. As should native-born Canadians who like to think that their country is tolerant and welcoming to all. The paper examines […]
Read moreErin has already posted a comment on last month’s surge in self employment . http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/05/08/do-it-yourself-recovery/ My colleague Sylvain Schetagne extracted some data from the Labour Force micro data file to get a better handle on the change last month – note these are NOT seasonally adjusted data so they should be interpreted with a bit of caution. The not seasonally […]
Read moreThe 2008 Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report provides some useful information on the state of active labour market policy in Canada before the recession, much more, in fact, than in previous reports. http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/employment/ei/reports/eimar_2008/index.shtml EI Part II Funds are transferred to the provinces through Labour Market Development Agreements (or LMDAs) which are used (almost entirely) to provide employment benefits (programs) […]
Read moreHere is my take on today’s Labour Force Survey: Self-Employment Surge April’s apparent gain in employment was entirely due to increased self-employment. Specifically, total employment rose by 36,000 while self-employment rose by 37,000, meaning that 1,000 fewer Canadians were paid by employers last month. One must ask whether more Canadians are becoming self-employed voluntarily or because they cannot find jobs […]
Read moreStatistics Canada has revealed that, adjusted for inflation, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by 0.1% in February. This decline is on par with September and October, but far less severe than November (-0.7%), December (-1.0%), and January (-0.7%). There are grounds for hope in that a slower pace of decline is a necessary precondition for a return to economic growth. […]
Read moreOne enormous myth that has been propagated (sometimes innocently, sometimes not) in recent debates over the future of the auto industry is the false notion that auto workers “make” $75 per hour. Autoworkers don’t remotely make that much money — yet the lie has been repeated often enough, I am amazed at how many people actually seem to believe it. […]
Read moreStatistics Canada provides an “R8” unemployment rate which adds to the unemployed: – discouraged job searchers who have dropped out of the labour force – those working part -time due to unavailability of hours – those not looking for work because awaiting a return to work By this measure, the unemployment rate jumped from 11.7% to 12.4% last month — […]
Read moreHere’s the quick analysis from my colleague Sylvain Schetagne. “61,300 jobs were lost in Canada in March. In fact, 79,500 full-time jobs were lost but some part-time jobs were added last month. The number of full-time jobs lost since October 2008: 386,500. Canadian workers who have lost their jobs since October 2008: 356,500. The unemployment rate has risen to 8.0% […]
Read moreHere is my take on today’s Labour Force Survey: National Unemployment Much attention will undoubtedly focus on the unemployment rate hitting 8% in March, which Statistics Canada notes is “the highest rate in seven years.” While technically correct, this presentation understates the situation’s severity. The unemployment rate briefly reached 8% seven years ago, in December 2001 and January 2002. However, […]
Read morePreliminary reports on this morning’s Labour Force Survey emphasize that the unemployment rate reached its highest level since 2003. However, the situation is far worse in absolute terms. The number of officially unemployed Canadians rose by 106,000 in February, pushing the total over 1.4 million. In other words, the ranks of Canada’s unemployed swelled to their highest level since February […]
Read moreIt is one of those publications that few media outlets will report on, and even fewer British Columbians will read, but BC Stats just released the latest version of its Local Area Economic Dependencies, updated based on 2006 census data. This publication basically asks where the income in various BC communities comes from. In many communities the resource sector is […]
Read moreYesterday the CCPA released a new study on family income inequality in BC by yours truly, which reveals some disturbing statistics about family incomes over the past 30 years. The figure below summarizes our main findings. Among our other key findings: The gap between the wealthiest and the majority of BC families has grown dramatically over the past 30 years. […]
Read moreA guest post from Tom Walker: The economic case for shorter working time was made 100 years ago this August in Winnipeg by Sydney J. Chapman. It was the standard model accepted by the elite academic establishment – Alfred Marshall, A.C. Pigou, Lionel Robbins and J.R. Hicks cited it as authoritative. This was not some obscure “debate among scholars from […]
Read moreThe deal, unveiled yesterday by the Premiers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is not actually called PEAR, but PARE: Partnership Agreement on Regulation and the Economy. Like TILMA, it was signed pursuant to Article 1800 of the existing Agreement on Internal Trade to further “liberalize trade, investment and workforce mobility.” Unlike TILMA, it does not establish an enforcement mechanism […]
Read morePEF member Salimah Valiani has written a report, released today by No One is Illegal, on the topic of temporary migrant workers in Canada, and a quiet but important shift in our immigration policies. The full report can be downloaded here and the abstract follows: This report elaborates the shift in immigration policy which began unfolding in Canada from the […]
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