Archive for the ‘Employment’ Category
Stephen Harper’s stealth EI changes are a worry.
May 18 2012
The Harper cabinet intends to spring a new set of “stealth” rules on us by way of regulation, months from now, after it has amended the Employment Insurance Act to strip away existing rights to refuse lousy jobs… But hurrying skilled people into menial jobs out of some misplaced sense that any job will do is a waste of resources. They should have the time to canvass for jobs that make productive use of their know-how. The current rules reflect that reality.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Shrugging off Canada’s competitiveness shortfall
May. 18, 2012
There is very little that can be done about Canada’s gaping competitiveness shortfall. Almost three-quarters of the gap is due to the soaring loonie, which is out of our control… Could Canadian workers be the problem? Again, the answer is no. Canada has among the highest rate of postsecondary education graduates in the world, performs well above average (and the United States) in international testing, and has a superior (and more rapidly improving) labour quality than the United States… during periods of high commodity prices, resource-intensive countries like Canada shed competitiveness. But this is paired with no obvious diminishment to well-being,..
Tags: economy, globalization, standard of living
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The Structural Revolution
May 7, 2012
There are several overlapping structural problems. First, there are those surrounding globalization and technological change. Hyperefficient globalized companies need fewer workers. As a result, unemployment rises, superstar salaries surge while lower-skilled wages stagnate, the middle gets hollowed out and inequality grows… The current model, in which we try to compensate for structural economic weakness with tax cuts and an unsustainable welfare state, simply cannot last. The old model is broken… Structuralists face a tension: How much should you reduce the pain the unemployed are feeling now, and how much should you devote your resources to long-term reform?
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Budget bill gives Conservatives broad power over EI rules
May 3, 2012
The measure is contained inside the budget implementation bill and would give cabinet the power to change employment insurance rules later through regulation without the approval of Parliament… The budget bill contains a small section that allows cabinet through regulation to define “suitable employment.” Ottawa isn’t saying what it has in mind… this and other EI changes in the budget bill – which also include replacing existing appeals bodies with a single “Social Security Tribunal” – are of such significance that they should be studied independently.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Toronto incubates new brand of business-charity hybrids
May 01 2012
Social enterprises are business-charity hybrids. They aim to do well in the marketplace in order to do good in the community. The concept is not new. Long before anyone was theorizing about it, Maritimers were doing it. Dairy famers built co-op creameries to cut their costs and stabilize their communities… These grassroots initiatives were one of the best anti-poverty programs ever conceived… In the ’60s, it petered out. Today’s social enterprise movement is a digital, secular, urban renaissance of that tradition.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Ottawa’s low-wage immigration policy threatens turmoil
Apr 27 2012
this government… says that if Canadians don’t want to see jobs going to foreigners, they should quit whining and accept lower wages. Which is why Ottawa’s answer to complaints made about temporary foreign workers is to toughen Employment Insurance rules. Kenney has warned that unemployed workers who refuse to take low-wage jobs will have their EI benefits cut off. If Canadians agree to work for less, he explains, Ottawa won’t have to bring in as many low-wage outsiders. All of this is a solution of sorts, I suppose, albeit a 19th century one. But it is a solution that threatens to bring with it the kind of agitation now seen in countries like France, Holland and Greece — where the racist right is on the rise and where far too many workers view immigrants as mortal enemies out to steal their jobs.
Tags: economy, ideology, immigration, participation, rights, standard of living
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Two-tiered wage system announced by Tories
Apr 28 2012
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has always vehemently denied bringing cheap foreign labour into Canada. Employers had to pay foreign temporary workers “the prevailing wage,” he pointed out. That indeed is what the rules said – until Wednesday, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley quietly changed them. Employers will now be allowed to pay foreign temp workers 15 per cent less than the average wage… When Canada introduced its temporary foreign worker program in 2002, the governing Liberals vowed never to adopt the European model route in which “guest workers” are paid less than nationals and treated as second-class residents
Tags: immigration, rights, standard of living
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The professional-class bubble is bursting
Apr. 28, 2012
The Great Reset has hit the professional classes too. Young professionals are facing a painful double squeeze. The cost of a degree has gone way up, and the economic benefit it confers has gone way down. Think twice before you encourage your daughter to go to law or med school, especially if she’ll have to borrow heavily to do it. On top of that, these young professionals are starting their working lives later than ever before. By the time they are credentialed and hit the work force, they’re in their early 30s… The professional classes can’t escape the gales of change that are ripping through society. They’ll adapt. But they’ll never be so comfortable again.
Tags: economy, standard of living, youth
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Greed loses its glamour, even on Wall Street
Apr 24 2012
… a few isolated voices — left-wing economists, academics, social activists, labour organizers, church leaders and corporate renegades — warned that Canada was becoming a highly inequitable nation… The volume went up a couple of notches last fall when thousands of young people took to the streets chanting: “We are the 99 per cent.” … Last week brought two developments that couldn’t be shrugged off or attributed to left-wing agitation. The first was a shareholders’ revolt at one of Wall Street’s biggest banks… “This is a shot across the bow of every corporate boardroom in America,”
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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What is Dutch Disease, and How To Cure It
April 16, 2012
We need more industries that add value to our resources (rather than exporting them in raw form); that generate more high‑income, high‑quality jobs; that embody technology and innovation; and that contribute to greater suc‑cess in world markets. These policies, and the fiscal tools that could fund them, formed part of the 2012 Alternative Federal Budget (published in March by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives).
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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