Jim Stanford writes that Canada's recent employment numbers are good. But we have a long way to go:
The headline growth in jobs (almost one million more Canadians were working in June, compared to May) was very encouraging, much better than expected. By that measure, Canada's labour market has climbed almost halfway back out of the hole we fell into from February through April.
But the next steps of job recovery will be much harder to achieve. The share of remaining unemployed Canadians expecting to go back to their former jobs has fallen substantially (just one-third now). We are experiencing a wave of second-order layoffs as companies permanently downsize because their market isn't coming back. Recent examples of that (all in the hard-hit transportation sector) include Air Canada (20,000 layoffs), WestJet (3,300 layoffs), Bombardier (2,500 layoffs), and VIA Rail (1,000 layoffs).
And make no mistake. Those numbers are directly related to the government programs which have been spawned in the wake of COVID:
This was a busy week for Canadian economic data, with today's labour force report coming on the heels of Wednesday's federal government "fiscal snapshot." Most observers thought the snapshot was bad news, because it forecast an enormous $343 billion deficit. But in fact, that big deficit is the flip side of the coin of today's good jobs numbers.
The two are clearly related: Without the enormous injections of government support (for household incomes, to keep workers on payrolls, to fight the health battle against COVID-19) that caused that big deficit, today's job numbers would have been much more dire.
But one brutal fact remains: The suffering has been unequally distributed:
Women, young workers, workers in temporary and insecure jobs (including gig workers), immigrants and migrant workers, have all also experienced disproportionate harm from the crisis. Ongoing policy responses (including both income supports and job-creation measures) must be focused on those hard-hit groups, or else we will experience a destructive polarization of well-being and opportunity that, among other consequences, will weaken our capacity to respond effectively to future public health emergencies.
Now the real work must begin. And that means those who have been the worst affected must be helped in finding a way forward.
Image: talkmarkets.com
4 comments:
As with a range of problems, Covid-19 has exposed sores that were already there. Manufacturers have been replacing manpower with robots and other techs for many years. Grunt work is performed by so called temporary foreign labourers. We could easily be looking at a permanent 50% marginalization of workers. Only the most talented and fortunate will have job security.
We have to include everyone in sharing the wealth. That will mean increasing taxes on those who can afford it, reductions on subsidizing resource extraction, and a range of services available to all. This won't happen until our governments scrap the GDP and use realistic economic measurements.
I agree wholeheartedly, Toby. GDP is no longer -- if it ever was -- a valid way to measure progress.
Owen, the GDP is a big finance measure. There was never a need for governments to use it. We can both remember when our governments built things and programs that enhanced the common weal; now they are tearing them down. We desperately need to put the common weal as priority one! We won't solve the big problems until we do.
I agree, Toby. There are much better metrics available, such as the HDI -- the Human Development Index.
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