Canada’s Job Market: Slower, Lower, Weaker
The following commentary on yesterday’s job numbers is quoted in today’s National Post (page FP4): The Olympic motto may be “Faster, Higher, Stronger,†but Canada’s employment growth is...
View ArticleYoung Workers Needed So Much More from Budget 2014
Recessions are always harder on young workers, but we are nearly five years out from the end of the last recession and there is still no recovery in sight for young workers. The paid internships...
View ArticleClik here to view.
IWD 2014: The “girl effect” reduces inequality, but Canada can’t coast on...
Every year when International Women’s Day rolls by, I can’t help but reflect on power, how it’s shared, and how women use the power they have. This year, I am struck by women’s power to reduce...
View ArticleStatCan Reports Fewest Vacant Jobs on Record
Statistics Canada reported today that there were only 199,700 vacant jobs in December 2013, the fewest recorded since it first reported these figures for March 2011. Statistics Canada began tracking...
View ArticleHow to calculate un(der)employment
For my day job, I wrote a thing about underemployment in Canada. I thought that it might be useful to post my method here so that other interested parties could calculate it for themselves. The...
View ArticleWhere the jobs at?
Mark it in your calendars folks, today, March 25, 2014 is the day that the Canadian labour shortage**Â myth officially died. (It may, of course, be resurrected as a zombie). Responding to a...
View ArticleAlex Usher on Jason Kenney’s Enthusiasm for German Apprenticeships
Alex Usher, one of Canada’s most well-known post-secondary education pundits, has just written a blog post offering some sober second thought on Minister Kenney’s recent enthusiasm for Germany’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
He-cession to She-precarious recovery?
As Armine has pointed out recently, women play a key role in economic recoveries: (She says it so well, I have to quote her directly:) Every recession is a “he-cessionâ€: men lose more jobs than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
About those people without jobs …
Statistics Canada released their latest job vacancy data today, giving us the three month average ending in January 2014. There were 6.7 unemployed workers for every job vacancy, higher than the past...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Women’s Work
My mother says that when she graduated from high school in 1972, she had two occupational choices: nurse or teacher. Nurse and teacher are still the most popular choices for women entering the...
View ArticleWhy France’s Economic Problems Matter
I’ve had the good fortune to live in France for the past 10 months on a year-long sabbatical and therefore been able to witness firsthand the travails of the Socialist government as it wrestles with...
View ArticleLabour Market Data Sitting on a Shelf
The Globe and Mail reports that the results of the Workplace Survey have sat on a shelf for two years due to cuts at Statistics Canada and a lack of funding from Employment and Social Development...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Austerity Bites, Employment Rate Falls Again
Today’s labour force numbers are ugly, there’s no other word for it. Employment down 29,000 jobs. Paid employment (ie. not counting self-employment) down 46,000 jobs. The only reason the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If underemployed workers counted …
I’ve written a little bit about the importance of tracking underemployment trends, and this is particularly important when those trends diverge from the headline unemployment rate. This graph (12 month...
View ArticleTim Hudak, job-killer
It’s a bit of a headscratcher. First, Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak builds his whole campaign around a promise to create one million new jobs in Ontario over eight years, then one of his first...
View ArticleAlex Usher Needs to Consider Taxation
My debate with Alex Usher on tuition fees continues, over at the Academic Matters web site. In my latest post, I make the case that Mr. Usher needs to consider Canada’s tax system when suggesting...
View ArticleHudak job cuts impact on communities
Today the Ontario Federation of Labour and CUPE Ontario published calculations I prepared of how Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s promise to eliminate 100,000 public sector jobs will be felt...
View ArticleJobs Up, But Hours Flat
On the surface, today’s employment numbers simply continue a recent trend: employers added some jobs but not enough to keep pace with Canada’s growing labour force. As a result, unemployment edged...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Job Vacancies Falling
The number of job vacancies recorded by Statistics Canada are at a four year low (job vacancy data collection began in January 2011). The number of unemployed persons has changed very little, and so we...
View ArticleHow do we measure job vacancies – beyond Kijiji
The Federal Government and Minister Kenney got a pretty good ribbing over their flawed methodology in measuring job vacancies – and with good reason. Anyone who has used Kijiji for anything knows how...
View Article