Category Labour markets
Long-term unemployment in Canada and the US
Last September, I wrote this, in a post where I made graphs comparing the number of long-term unemployed workers in Canada and the US: The more I look at the US, the more I see unpleasant parallels to Canada's experience of the 1990's – what Pierre Fortin called The Great Canadian Slump. Even after we […]
The gendered recession
Yesterday's LFS numbers were better than a kick in the head with a frozen boot: just under one-third of the losses inflicted by the recession on the labour market have been recovered. But there's something else that happened in the January release. Many have already noted that employment losses among men were more severe than […]
Demographic change isn’t a long-term problem any more
It's now a short-term problem. I spent the morning doing interviews on CBC radio morning shows in Corner Brook, Victoria and nine places in between. (For those of you who caught it, yes, I really do speak that quickly. I try to slow down when I'm on the air, but sometimes I forget.) One of […]
Some comments on the Liberal childcare proposals
Michael Ignatieff is honouring the ancient Liberal tradition (it goes back to at least Jean Chrétien's 1993 Red Book) of promising of a national childcare program. Here is an extract from an e-mail I received from an academic whose research touches on this area. (I've added a few footnotes and links for the parts where […]
Statistics Canada needs JOLTS
Here is a graph – stolen from the Wall Street Journal – for which I very much wish I were able to make a Canadian version: These numbers come from the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey; there is no Canadian counterpart to this data source.
Even more evidence that people respond to incentives
A few years ago, Human Resources Development Canada (HDRC) ran an experimental project to see how single parents on welfare responded to changes in their budget constraint. It has long been known that single mothers on social assistance are particularly vulnerable to the welfare trap: not only are their payments clawed back as they earn […]
What is it with Microeconomists?
They are certainly not stupid. And they are certainly not ignorant either. I know that the ones I'm complaining about are smarter than me, and more knowledgeable than me. And that includes economics smarts and knowledge. Some of them make me feel totally inadequate on a daily basis (I read their blogs daily). Some of […]
More on the ineffectiveness of minimum wages as an anti-poverty measure
The most recent issue of Canadian Public Policy has this short note: Minimum Wage Increases as an Anti-Poverty Policy in Ontario: In this article, we consider the possibility of alleviating poverty in Ontario through minimum wage increases. Using survey data from 2004 to profile low wage earners and poor households, we find two important results. […]
The September LFS report: Employment and hours worked
Last Friday's LFS release was the best we've seen in a long while. Not only did employment increase for the second month in a row, there was a significant jump in hours worked as well.
Flashbacks to the 1970’s: the Bank of Canada and the deficit
Doug Peters and Arthur Donner (names I remember from the 1970s debate over inflation in Canada) have an opinion piece in the Toronto Star on the role of the Bank of Canada in reducing the budget deficit. It starts out fine, but ends in a non-sequitur.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments