Too many people without jobs
And at the same time, too many jobs without people
by Francine St.Amand
If anyone can make sense of Canada’s Labour Market analysis, please contact me.
The Globe and Mail recently (Feb 17) published an article, “Tories’ budget, Statscan at odds over number of vacant jobs” which talked about how two different arms of government are presenting a labor market picture that are at odds with one another.
“It’s a paradox that ripples through a 54-page analysis of the state of Canada’s labour market released with last week’s federal budget. It’s the first time such a paper has been published with the budget, offering insights into how the Conservative government views the current jobs market and future trends.”
On the one hand, the finance department claims that the job vacancy rate has been climbing since 2009. Apparently the department’s “vacancy rate is based on its own calculations, using several data sources that can’t easily be replicated or checked by economists.”
On the other hand, “The ‘official’ measure, by Statscan, suggests that vacancies aren’t very high and that the key problem is a lack of job demand. Statscan’s labour force survey shows that the job vacancy rate has fallen from a year earlier amid a drop in the overall number of job openings. Canadian job growth in 2013 was the weakest since the recession.
Regardless of how analysis is being manipulated to support an agenda, the fact remains that people are looking for work and jobs are scarce in what appears to be everything but trucking and oil/gas sectors.
As the feds and some provincial governments push aggressively for fossil fuel extraction, under the guise of solving employment woes, Canadians aren’t buying it. Fossil fuel energy is just a bad investment – oh, unless you are looking for a trick that pays shareholders well in the short term.
Dear John,
This fuelish affair is over.
The fossil fuel affair has been so passionately played out that it has blurred the logic of some onlookers. Some are even dubious that we are in a climate change crises!!
In my world, as a person who supports job seekers in finding work, I look at trends. For a long time, we have been sold the idea that there is a “skills shortage” in Canada, and that’s why there is high number of people who cannot or have given up finding work.
Look at the global trends and what’s in demand: Small-scale organically grown food, ecologically managed forestry, slow-food vs fast food, clean energy, holistic health care, small-scale entrepreneurship… I think the skills that are in shortage are the ones than enable the “leaders” to see these trends as opportunities. For starters, leaders need to upgrade their math skills. They apparently do not seem to understand this:
