In a drop that some economists are calling 'worrisome,' Canada’s labour market shed 84,000 jobs in February, one of the sharpest monthly declines seen outside the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government says the measures are necessary in parts of the country where businesses are struggling to find the people they need.
“Canadians must always be first in line for available jobs, but in some rural regions employers are facing persistent labour shortages,” said Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu in a statement included in the news release outlining the measures.
We have people, clearly, as our jobless numbers show. People want to work. The woman quoted in the article feels desperate.
So the only other explanation is that they aren’t offering proper compensation.
I do think immigration is the main cause of the unemployment crisis, mass immigration while the Bank of Canada raised interest rates was always going to cause mass unemployment.
During Covid they did stimulus and QE, which caused the 8% inflation. If you see the Phillips curve you’ll see that causes a labor shortage in the short term. This is a natural part of an economy, and wipes out the wealth inequality caused by asset appreciation via bargaining power for wages, if you rememeber the “quiet quitting” phenomenon a few years back.
The Federal government then did mass immigration, 1.4 million a year, tripling immigration over 3 years. They also allowed students to work 40 hours. This decreased labor pressure and lowered wage growth.
The Bank of Canada then raised interest rates to cool the job market. Now we have cooled wages, less need for workers, and an inevitable surplus of workers. All this was also done when we had a preexisting housing shortage, so rents and housing prices dramatically increased as well.
I sorta get what you’re saying but you seriously need to change your angle, and yesterday. It’s not immigration that caused this, it was poor planning. We need immigration for a lot of reasons but governments being incredibly lazy about affordable housing projects, attacking workers’ rights, and allowing foreign companies like US-based energy companies to rat-fuck our environment just to siphon away our assets on the cheap are all way bigger issues making us poor.
The Liberal government is a conservative one, only margainally better than the Conservatives. They even tried to break the Air Canada strike and we are all lucky that those workers held their ground. They are allowing energy companies to rip out our resources without any environmental reviews for five years and they will, as usual, do nothing to punish them when they inevitably do awful, damaging shit in the process. They fired 40,000 people in time where getting a job is a hard enough when al’ they really needed to do was tax wealthy people and corporations. They won’t even let us have fair elections despite their promise from 2015 which they threw out upon learning that they’d probably never win again if we had real choice and they couldn’t bank on scare tactics anymore.
We have lots of empty housing which goes unfilled because it doesn’t help drive prices up if everyone has a place to live and there’s less competition. Weak or non-existent affordable housing programs also allow private developers to take money and land and do nothing truly valuable with it. The same thing works with jobs as companies would rather overwork who they have than risk taking on someone for higher wages and setting that precedent. This is what capitalism is, a society where capital is the goal, not the betterment of the society itself.
You’re mad, and you’ve got a big stick but for the love of god please stop hitting yourself with it.
This doesn’t seem like a logical argument for today.
Unemployment is either a too many workers or too few jobs issue.
Of course both can happen at the same time and that is to a degree what’s happening here.
The most significant shock to the Canadian economy in the past year is the trade war with the United States. This would be the primary reason in 2025 and 2026.
The immigration from years ago exacerbates the issue but Carney’s government has scaled back significantly in the past year.
Youth unemployment is up to 14.1% because cost of living has caused people to delay retirement and automation tends to snap up entry level jobs first.
I would look at this information and blame US trade policy primarily. Then maybe Trudeau for poor planning though doubt he could have anticipated the Canada US relationship turning sour.
Without immigration, Canada’s population is in a state of involution which is considered fairly incompatible with the idea of a growing economy. Canada and many Western countries are extra fucked because of the population skewing towards elderly.
Carney is slowing immigration likely because he’s anticipating Canada’s economy to stagnate or shrink in the short term. He’s not a miracle worker, the best he can likely do is limit the pain from the US’ betrayal but it’s going to be fairly improbable to create a win from the situation.
Housing is a factor. It’s a bit asinine to invite people over when your housing market is a hot mess but Trudeau did it anyways.
Canada is going to need to bolster its housing situation, healthcare system and other social institutions for the betterment of its people but also to be an attractive destination for immigration or risk losing its standing as a middle power (especially with the US no longer in its corner).
Sure bro the supply of workers has nothing to do with demand for labor or the rate of pay. Im sure that as soon as they get a.i. sorted they wont reserve course. You better wake up and start noticing.
It is entirely supply and demand for labor, that was my whole point. We increased supply of workers while interest rate hikes lowered demand by mechanically slowing money supply creation, what am I missing?
Is it that difficult to grasp?! You’re missing the part where the people in charge of this “natural” process have their thumbs on the fucking scale.
Don’t cherry pick economic theory to make this yet another “blame the workers” bullshit story. Supply and demand are economic constants in a microeconomy for theoretical modelling purposes, not a quotable to explain why things are the way they are.
As soon as you start adding in stuff like real people with real, non-economic needs, the model breaks in the real world.
See, for example, the Finnish approach to housing that reflects social needs rather than economic outcome for model that doesn’t end up with us plebs all on the bottom.
So you think you can just dump workers into a country and it has no affect on housing demand or wages?
I was also somehow blaming the workers for being to numerous, is that what you mean? I was intending on blaming the government, as they appear beholden to corporations pushing modern forms of slavery.
So you think you can just dump workers into a country and it has no affect on housing demand or wages?
That’s not what I said. You aren’t following what I and others are saying.
When you say stuff like “it’s entirely supply and demand for labour”, you are replaying talking points of that same government and those same corporate interests, who both use language around housing like it’s something people can just stop wanting by framing it as a commodity.
Our issues aren’t based on population changes one way or another, they exist squarely because we treat housing as a commodity and as a financial vehicle. There is effectively enough housing for everyone, it’s just been placed out of reach for many.
Supply and demand explains the price of lemons in a place that can’t grow lemons. It does not work for housing, which is a hard requirement of social stability, that’s why we can’t treat housing like we treat buying and selling lemons.
Slow down and read what is being said to you, and for your own peace of mind, stop interpreting criticism as a personal attack.
Nice theory you got there, shame it doesn’t bear out in practice. In normal labour conditions workers have no leverage over employers to demand higher wages because workers have to take any job available in order to avoid homelessness and hunger. Workers demand for jobs is inelastic. Only in labour shortage scenarios workers have leverage to demand higher wages. But even then industry consolidation counteracts that because large corporations not only have price setting market power in the consumer market but also in the labour market. This is why the only consistent way to create similar leverage for worker in the labour market is unionization. Wages have never grown significantly enough to chip away wealth inequality except in the presence of strong and wide unionization. This is the main reason why increased labour productivity decoupled from wage increases since the 70s and 80s, when union busting started picking up around the world.
Rapidly increasing labour supply can make wages worse but that’s not the main driver as there have been periods where wages have both been increasing with significant immigration and also others where wages were stagnant without significant immigration.
No I wouldn’t. I would say unionization is eroded through various union busting strategies as practiced as far back as the 19th century. The incentives to bust unions operate on individual firm level and do not require any other macro level phenomena to explain. Firms bust unions because unions increase wages and higher wages reduce profits.
Canadian government does PLENTY of union busting. Firms and government are completely aligned on this.
Government does everything it can to keep canadian wages low to attract business. Corporations are more likely to invest extract from Canada if the government of Canada undermines fair negotiations and writes back to work legislation every time and stomps all over its citizens’rights.
The AC union fought back and ignored back to work orders. They had huge support among Canadians. They were then quietly taken out back and shot by the Canadian government and its arbitration.
I’ll just leave this here.
We have people, clearly, as our jobless numbers show. People want to work. The woman quoted in the article feels desperate.
So the only other explanation is that they aren’t offering proper compensation.
It’s exploitation.
Could be. On the other hand, I agree with the article.
I do think immigration is the main cause of the unemployment crisis, mass immigration while the Bank of Canada raised interest rates was always going to cause mass unemployment.
During Covid they did stimulus and QE, which caused the 8% inflation. If you see the Phillips curve you’ll see that causes a labor shortage in the short term. This is a natural part of an economy, and wipes out the wealth inequality caused by asset appreciation via bargaining power for wages, if you rememeber the “quiet quitting” phenomenon a few years back.
The Federal government then did mass immigration, 1.4 million a year, tripling immigration over 3 years. They also allowed students to work 40 hours. This decreased labor pressure and lowered wage growth.
The Bank of Canada then raised interest rates to cool the job market. Now we have cooled wages, less need for workers, and an inevitable surplus of workers. All this was also done when we had a preexisting housing shortage, so rents and housing prices dramatically increased as well.
I sorta get what you’re saying but you seriously need to change your angle, and yesterday. It’s not immigration that caused this, it was poor planning. We need immigration for a lot of reasons but governments being incredibly lazy about affordable housing projects, attacking workers’ rights, and allowing foreign companies like US-based energy companies to rat-fuck our environment just to siphon away our assets on the cheap are all way bigger issues making us poor.
The Liberal government is a conservative one, only margainally better than the Conservatives. They even tried to break the Air Canada strike and we are all lucky that those workers held their ground. They are allowing energy companies to rip out our resources without any environmental reviews for five years and they will, as usual, do nothing to punish them when they inevitably do awful, damaging shit in the process. They fired 40,000 people in time where getting a job is a hard enough when al’ they really needed to do was tax wealthy people and corporations. They won’t even let us have fair elections despite their promise from 2015 which they threw out upon learning that they’d probably never win again if we had real choice and they couldn’t bank on scare tactics anymore.
We have lots of empty housing which goes unfilled because it doesn’t help drive prices up if everyone has a place to live and there’s less competition. Weak or non-existent affordable housing programs also allow private developers to take money and land and do nothing truly valuable with it. The same thing works with jobs as companies would rather overwork who they have than risk taking on someone for higher wages and setting that precedent. This is what capitalism is, a society where capital is the goal, not the betterment of the society itself.
You’re mad, and you’ve got a big stick but for the love of god please stop hitting yourself with it.
This doesn’t seem like a logical argument for today.
Unemployment is either a too many workers or too few jobs issue.
Of course both can happen at the same time and that is to a degree what’s happening here.
The most significant shock to the Canadian economy in the past year is the trade war with the United States. This would be the primary reason in 2025 and 2026.
The immigration from years ago exacerbates the issue but Carney’s government has scaled back significantly in the past year.
Youth unemployment is up to 14.1% because cost of living has caused people to delay retirement and automation tends to snap up entry level jobs first.
I would look at this information and blame US trade policy primarily. Then maybe Trudeau for poor planning though doubt he could have anticipated the Canada US relationship turning sour.
Without immigration, Canada’s population is in a state of involution which is considered fairly incompatible with the idea of a growing economy. Canada and many Western countries are extra fucked because of the population skewing towards elderly.
Carney is slowing immigration likely because he’s anticipating Canada’s economy to stagnate or shrink in the short term. He’s not a miracle worker, the best he can likely do is limit the pain from the US’ betrayal but it’s going to be fairly improbable to create a win from the situation.
Housing is a factor. It’s a bit asinine to invite people over when your housing market is a hot mess but Trudeau did it anyways.
Canada is going to need to bolster its housing situation, healthcare system and other social institutions for the betterment of its people but also to be an attractive destination for immigration or risk losing its standing as a middle power (especially with the US no longer in its corner).
Sure bro the supply of workers has nothing to do with demand for labor or the rate of pay. Im sure that as soon as they get a.i. sorted they wont reserve course. You better wake up and start noticing.
It is entirely supply and demand for labor, that was my whole point. We increased supply of workers while interest rate hikes lowered demand by mechanically slowing money supply creation, what am I missing?
Is it that difficult to grasp?! You’re missing the part where the people in charge of this “natural” process have their thumbs on the fucking scale.
Don’t cherry pick economic theory to make this yet another “blame the workers” bullshit story. Supply and demand are economic constants in a microeconomy for theoretical modelling purposes, not a quotable to explain why things are the way they are.
As soon as you start adding in stuff like real people with real, non-economic needs, the model breaks in the real world.
See, for example, the Finnish approach to housing that reflects social needs rather than economic outcome for model that doesn’t end up with us plebs all on the bottom.
So you think you can just dump workers into a country and it has no affect on housing demand or wages?
I was also somehow blaming the workers for being to numerous, is that what you mean? I was intending on blaming the government, as they appear beholden to corporations pushing modern forms of slavery.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140437
That’s not what I said. You aren’t following what I and others are saying.
When you say stuff like “it’s entirely supply and demand for labour”, you are replaying talking points of that same government and those same corporate interests, who both use language around housing like it’s something people can just stop wanting by framing it as a commodity.
Our issues aren’t based on population changes one way or another, they exist squarely because we treat housing as a commodity and as a financial vehicle. There is effectively enough housing for everyone, it’s just been placed out of reach for many.
Supply and demand explains the price of lemons in a place that can’t grow lemons. It does not work for housing, which is a hard requirement of social stability, that’s why we can’t treat housing like we treat buying and selling lemons.
Slow down and read what is being said to you, and for your own peace of mind, stop interpreting criticism as a personal attack.
Nice theory you got there, shame it doesn’t bear out in practice. In normal labour conditions workers have no leverage over employers to demand higher wages because workers have to take any job available in order to avoid homelessness and hunger. Workers demand for jobs is inelastic. Only in labour shortage scenarios workers have leverage to demand higher wages. But even then industry consolidation counteracts that because large corporations not only have price setting market power in the consumer market but also in the labour market. This is why the only consistent way to create similar leverage for worker in the labour market is unionization. Wages have never grown significantly enough to chip away wealth inequality except in the presence of strong and wide unionization. This is the main reason why increased labour productivity decoupled from wage increases since the 70s and 80s, when union busting started picking up around the world.
Rapidly increasing labour supply can make wages worse but that’s not the main driver as there have been periods where wages have both been increasing with significant immigration and also others where wages were stagnant without significant immigration.
Sure I’d say unionization is eroded by mass immigration and capital shallowing, wouldnt you?
No I wouldn’t. I would say unionization is eroded through various union busting strategies as practiced as far back as the 19th century. The incentives to bust unions operate on individual firm level and do not require any other macro level phenomena to explain. Firms bust unions because unions increase wages and higher wages reduce profits.
Canadian government does PLENTY of union busting. Firms and government are completely aligned on this.
Government does everything it can to keep canadian wages low to attract business. Corporations are more likely to
investextract from Canada if the government of Canada undermines fair negotiations and writes back to work legislation every time and stomps all over its citizens’rights.The AC union fought back and ignored back to work orders. They had huge support among Canadians. They were then quietly taken out back and shot by the Canadian government and its arbitration.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aircanada/comments/1r7jj82/arbitration_over_for_flight_attendants/