Seeing as I have a day job, a dog, and some hobbies (also known as "a life"), it's rather difficult to write political-economic commentary in a timely way. So this isn't exactly "news" right now, but it might yet be new to you. Consider the following:
The CAW economist in question, Jim Stanford, tried to explain to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance that no, employment has not recovered from The Recession. Quoth he:
Of course if you're a worker, you already knew that. When your correspondent was in school for pre-employment carpentry in the fall of 2008, Flint Energy Services (now URS Flint) was hiring apprentice carpenters for its Fort McMurray projects, twenty at a time, no experience necessary. That's exactly why I was taking the course. But by the time I came out of school, The Recession was on, the projects were cancelled, and job postings on Flint's website had gone from 1500 to 50. Nowadays it might have 200 to 300, but it's just not there. And if you life Flint on Facebook, every time they advertise a job fair or urgent need for X or Y skill, former Flint workers start asking when their job will reopen. It's sad.
Stanford estimates the actual unemployment in Canada at 12.1%, including those who fall under the official definition of "unemployed", those who have left the work force, those working part-time for lack of anything else, and those waiting for jobs to start. It doesn't include the under-employed, like your correspondent. An estimate of that number could, I suspect, be obtained from the changes in the shares of skilled areas of employment, such as construction and manufacturing, compared to unskilled areas such as service. That is to say, we skilled workers are getting along by waiting tables and such. Which is better than the dole, but as Free Exchange was saying on May 26, we're not just bored and broke, we're also losing our skills.
One myth that clearly didn't get debunked for Canada NewsWire yet is the idea that the recession is over. "The worst days of the 2008-09 recession", as they call it, are alive and well, notwithstanding The Harper's Government factually inaccurate statements to the contrary. Earlier this year, The Economist had expressed some cautious optimism that the recovery might perhaps be realistically expected for 2013. More recent issues seem to expect rather a more or less catastrophic collapse.
The CBC article suggests much the same. Apparently, Manpower Group Inc. calculated the hiring outlook to be the lowest in two years, that is, since 2010. Fortunately, I was working in my field in 2010 (for a grotesquely dishonest employer, mind you), so at that time I didn't keep track of the job postings, but I certainly didn't see a glut of them when I started looking for a way out.
And not only is the hiring outlook that bad, but construction and manufacturing are even below the average. And whereas Maclean's had recently printed figures showing the services sector on the winning side (US figures, mind you, like that's any use in a Canadian newspaper), Manpower apparently sees it the other way. More's the pity: that means less jobs waiting tables for us construction refugees.
Your correspondent is not amused.
- CAW Economist Debunks "Myth" of Labour Shortage, Says True Unemployment Rate is Over 12 Per cent, CAW, 31 May 2012
- Hiring outlook hits 2-year low, CBC News, 12 June 2012
The CAW economist in question, Jim Stanford, tried to explain to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance that no, employment has not recovered from The Recession. Quoth he:
"The oft-made claim that Canada's labour market has fully recovered from the recession is blatantly and empirically false. In fact, the labour market remains almost as weak as during the worst days of the downturn... Canada continues to experience a condition of severe and chronic underutilization of our labour supply. It is simply not credible to speak of a 'labour shortage' that somehow constrains our economic growth. This feared labour shortage is a myth invoked to justify painful and unnecessary cuts to important social programs... Government policies aimed at compelling labour supply (including proposals to defer Old Age Security, cut Employment Insurance benefits, and dramatically expand the Temporary Foreign Worker program) are motivated not by a labour shortage, but by a desire to suppress wages."
Of course if you're a worker, you already knew that. When your correspondent was in school for pre-employment carpentry in the fall of 2008, Flint Energy Services (now URS Flint) was hiring apprentice carpenters for its Fort McMurray projects, twenty at a time, no experience necessary. That's exactly why I was taking the course. But by the time I came out of school, The Recession was on, the projects were cancelled, and job postings on Flint's website had gone from 1500 to 50. Nowadays it might have 200 to 300, but it's just not there. And if you life Flint on Facebook, every time they advertise a job fair or urgent need for X or Y skill, former Flint workers start asking when their job will reopen. It's sad.
Stanford estimates the actual unemployment in Canada at 12.1%, including those who fall under the official definition of "unemployed", those who have left the work force, those working part-time for lack of anything else, and those waiting for jobs to start. It doesn't include the under-employed, like your correspondent. An estimate of that number could, I suspect, be obtained from the changes in the shares of skilled areas of employment, such as construction and manufacturing, compared to unskilled areas such as service. That is to say, we skilled workers are getting along by waiting tables and such. Which is better than the dole, but as Free Exchange was saying on May 26, we're not just bored and broke, we're also losing our skills.
One myth that clearly didn't get debunked for Canada NewsWire yet is the idea that the recession is over. "The worst days of the 2008-09 recession", as they call it, are alive and well, notwithstanding The Harper's Government factually inaccurate statements to the contrary. Earlier this year, The Economist had expressed some cautious optimism that the recovery might perhaps be realistically expected for 2013. More recent issues seem to expect rather a more or less catastrophic collapse.
The CBC article suggests much the same. Apparently, Manpower Group Inc. calculated the hiring outlook to be the lowest in two years, that is, since 2010. Fortunately, I was working in my field in 2010 (for a grotesquely dishonest employer, mind you), so at that time I didn't keep track of the job postings, but I certainly didn't see a glut of them when I started looking for a way out.
And not only is the hiring outlook that bad, but construction and manufacturing are even below the average. And whereas Maclean's had recently printed figures showing the services sector on the winning side (US figures, mind you, like that's any use in a Canadian newspaper), Manpower apparently sees it the other way. More's the pity: that means less jobs waiting tables for us construction refugees.
Your correspondent is not amused.
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