Canada's job creation numbers have been dismal. Carol Goar writes:
The numbers are striking. Since last autumn, Canada has created 50,000 part-time jobs but lost 20,000 full-time positions.
What was once a whisper — are we becoming a nation of part-timers? — has swollen into a worried chorus.
A report by Randall Bartlett and Derek Burleton for the Toronto Dominion Bank acknowledges the growth in part time work. But both economists conclude that, as the American economy picks up, Canadians will return to full time work. Goar, however, questions their research:
The authors don’t examine the possibility that employers have permanently scaled back their payrolls to reduce their exposure to risks beyond their control.
They don’t take into account the structural changes that have reshaped the Canadian workforce: globalization, outsourcing, the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, the sharp increase in income inequality, the westward shift in the country’s economic fulcrum and the influx of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
And they summarily dismiss the idea that this might be the new normal. But to millennials, it is a real fear. This is all they’ve known since they entered the labour force. They suspect it is all they ever will know.
The so called "recovery" doesn't feel like one:
Workers are skeptical. This doesn’t feel like a normal recovery. Five years after it began, employers are still making do with part-timers, temporary workers and contract employees. Skilled workers who lost their livelihood during the recession are now doing low-wage service jobs. College and university graduates can’t get an economic foothold. A new business model seems to have taken hold.
The report is long on hope -- perhaps because the authors recognize that, if the trend in part time employment continues, we have the tinder that could start a revolution. And, then, things could get very nasty.
6 comments:
And, as Goar's piece points out, Owen, 'Uncle Joe' Oliver is promising even more tax cuts in his 2015 budget, despite the fact that they have proven a dismal failure in encouraging the corporate sector to create new jobs. As always with the Conservatives, ideology trumps reality.
They have created hundreds of millions of dollars of dead money, Lorne.
They are no economic wizards.
Jason Kenny out and out blatantly lied regarding, his TFW. He and Harper are bringing in foreigners, that are not ticketed nor certified. As the two fellows said, foreigners are far too dangerous to work with. Foreigners have the full time jobs, in the resource sector.
Corporations are, bottomless pits of greed. The only jobs they will create, won't be for Canadians. It is as Flaherty said? The wealthy are sitting on the money, which will cause another recession. This is all deliberate, to gain control.
Every time the corporations line up at the trough and squeal for more money? Harper gives them another, $60 billion in tax reductions.
Anyone believing henchman Joe Oliver, have rocks in their heads. Remember Oliver said, we are eco terrorists. None of Harper's henchmen are believable.
If they persist in following the same policies, Anon, there will be some nasty times ahead.
" College and university graduates can’t get an economic foothold. A new business model seems to have taken hold."
Isn't it interesting Owen that Harper and gang insist on talking about their strong guidance of the "economy" while producing NO data to support their claim. While pursuing his neoAustrian delusions (we all know the schtick by now ....tax decreases for the wealthy create jobs, austerity in a zero bound economy will create improvement, balance the budget as soon as possible because that is prudent) Herr Harper has damaged the Canadian response to the 2009 great recession. Full time jobs will NOT come back until there is demand in the economy, TFW's are exactly the opposite response to this problem (yes they will lead to decreases in wages!) and laying off 30,000+ federal servants is an ideological move, not a fiscal solution in this economy and they just keep repeating the SAME OLD talking points. He has set himself up for horrible jobs and economic data coming into this election -but I have yet to hear Trudeau or Mulcair marshall some basic macroeconomics in the face of Harper's fail?! We have talked before about what kind of "economist" he is -why are they not spanking him? Just sayin"
Counter cyclical spending is a well established response to a recession, Asking. Harper was forced by the opposition to adopt that strategy when he held a minority.
But a majority gave him the opportunity to practice stupid economics. And now the chickens are coming home to roost.
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