Hennessy's Index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world. Scroll down for a PDF version. For other months, visit: http://policyalternatives.ca/index
$6.6 million
Employment and labour
Friday’s labour force survey numbers from Statistics Canada were another nail in the coffin of Canada’s fleeting, fragile economic “recovery.”
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly supposed. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.”
--John Maynard Keynes
* * *
Ideas matter greatly in determining the shape and direction of our society.
Over the last 10 years, the barriers that immigrants to Canada face in integrating economically, socially, and politically have become relatively common knowledge. The taxi driver with a Ph.D. degree is the proverbial example. In reaction to growing labour market shortages and the continuing decline in immigrant labour market outcomes, the federal government has been shifting the structure of the immigration system from a “one-step” process that is largely based on permanent residency and views immigrants as citizens to a “two-step” process.
Canada already has a large bilateral trade deficit with the EU—$15 billion in goods and close to $4 billion in services, and loses some 70,000 jobs as a result. This study finds a free trade agreement would make that imbalance worse.
The study models three scenarios to provide a range of estimages regarding the likely impacts of EU-Canada free trade. In every case, Canada's bilateral trade balance worsens significantly. The simulations suggest an incredmental loss of between 28,000 and 150,000 Canadian jobs.
The Harper government loves to refer to Canada’s post-recession track record with the phrase “we’re punching above our weight.”
If only it were true.
When it comes to the true measure of recovery – jobs – Canada is not punching above its weight. In fact, we’re still waiting for a meaningful private-sector-led full-time jobs recovery.
In the policy milieu of the Maritimes, the Nova Scotia branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is showing itself to be a crucial progressive voice, by providing a viable alternative to austerity measures that target the most vulnerable. Watch these prominent Nova Scotians and CCPA stakeholders give their account on what the CCPA-NS means to them.
http://www.youtube.com/v/TPHvCNBFDUw?fs=1&hl=en_US
Today the CCPA released a new report by myself and Ken Carlaw, an economist at UBC-Okanagan, that looks at industrial and employment strategies the BC government can use to transition to a sustainable economy and create a new generation of well-paying green jobs.
Every recession ushers in a rising tide of poverty. As jobless and underemployed people struggle to make ends meet, the nouveau poor swell the ranks of the déjà poor.
The most recent statistical update on incomes in Canada was released in June, telling us that in 2008, as the nation headed into a brutal recession, there were just over 3 million Canadians living in poverty in this country using the standard meas- ure, Statistic Canada’s after-tax low-income cut-off (LICO).