Category Labour markets
Measuring employment in Canada: LFS vs SEPH
Statistics Canada publishes two sets of numbers for employment. The one that makes the headlines is from the Labour Force Survey of households, and it is released on the first or second Friday following the month in question. The other series is the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours of employers, and it is released […]
Long-term unemployment 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 emerged from the worst of the 1990-91 recession, we still had to deal with a large current account deficit, out-of-control government deficits and significant […]
What is the problem that EI reform is supposed to solve?
If asked, people might say something along the lines of this Toronto Star editorial: The rolls of the unemployed in Canada continue to grow… Many or most of them won't be eligible for employment insurance (EI), due to the program's Byzantine eligibility requirements. Very alarming – especially that word "most". But how do we know […]
A mildly disappointing Labour Force Survey release
Well, that wasn't was we were hoping for. But even so, the past few months in which employment had gone sideways means that after 9 months of recession, employment is where it was at this time in the previous two recessions: Another series I'm watching is hours worked. It's much more choppy than employment, but […]
Comparing employment growth in Canada and the US over the longer term
A recurring theme in discussions about what we might expect from an eventual US recovery is that it will be long and painful. This is not entirely due to the severity of the current recession. As Michael Mandel notes, the recent drop in US employment capped a decade in which employment growth was already slower […]
On extending EI to the self-employed
One of the outcomes of the latest political psychodrama is that a 'blue ribbon panel' will be set up to look at the idea of extending EI benefits to those who are self-employed. There are at least two reasons for taking this idea seriously: The number of people who are self-employed has been increasing as […]
The May LFS survey: Ontari-ari-ario is not a place to grow
The May LFS release pretty much cancels out the (surprising) growth in employment we saw in April. Here is the latest in my series of graphs comparing the current recession with previous experiences: It's way too early to break out the party hats, but we can perhaps set aside direct comparisons with the Great Depression. […]
EI reform: Jack Mintz piles on
I am pleased to report that another voice has been added to the public debate on whether the Liberals' proposals for EI are dumber than a sack of hammers or if they are simply pointless. Jack Mintz has written an op-ed for the National Post on the topic, and it starts thus: Jack Mintz: 360 […]
A plea for a sensible change to EI
The Canadian Labour Congress' Andrew Jackson is worried about EI claimants who might be exhausting their benefits. If the opposition is serious about using EI reform as a cudgel for bashing the government, they would do well to read Andrew's post.
On the sheer pointlessness of reducing hours for EI eligibility as a counter-cyclical policy
One of the points I've been making about the psychodrama over reducing the EI eligibility requirements (eg: here and here) takes the form of a question: "Just what problem is this supposed to solve? How many people are there who were hired three months ago – in the teeth of the worst labour market in […]
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