LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: unemployment

Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts

Sunday, December 07, 2008

On The Dole

I love ths headline, speaking truth to power as they say, too often unemployment appears to have no apparent cause but it does of course, the bosses decide....Canadian employers wipe out 71000 jobs

Even though the bosses were given HR advice not to do this, they can't help themselves they have no plan to deal with the recession so they fall back on the old tried and true, lay off workers.

Fears of a million layoffs a month in corporate America

And as usual the cheery economic advisors to the bosses didn't expect this.
Canada lost 70600 jobs in November, about three times more than many economists had expected, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.

As strategist Ed Yardeni wrote, "the latest batch of economic indicators is so bad that we are either spiralling into a depression or we are within a few months of a V-shaped recovery."
Put Mr. Abramson, 42, firmly in the V-shaped camp. He doesn't believe a years-long slump is lurking in the shadows, although the markets have been trading that way.
"It's been a rough economy, which we underestimated," he says. But the market response reflects a "psychological meltdown" that has taken stocks down to ridiculous valuations.
"We've been fully invested for a period here, because we didn't believe this was going to go as far down versus valuation and economic reality as it has. We thought this was going to be a normal 20-per-cent correction." Oops.

So while Harper created a political crisis to avoid addressing the economic crisis, it slapped him in the face like a wet fish. Indeed can you say recession, the word he refuses to use. And he has no plan to address it, so he creates a political crisis to distract us from the bad news.

Harper shuts down Parliament while unemployment hits recession levels

We are in a recession, and the dark clouds of depression creep over the horizon.

Canada loses 70600 jobs in a month, most since '82
Ontario's crumbling manufacturing sector is a major reason why the 66000 of the 71000 jobs that disappeared in Canada in November did so in this province. ...

Yep the oil crash of '82 was when we had one of our worst recessions.

Good News — Conditions Resemble 1973-74!
The recession of 1974-75 was the worst since the 1930’s Great Depression. The 1973-74 bear market in anticipation of that recession was the worst bear market since that of the 1929-32 bear market (which led to the Great Depression). The mid-1970’s were indeed a miserable period.

And that was just last months unemployment figures the news continues to be bad across Canada.

GM to lay off 700 more workers in Oshawa

AbitibiBowater to shut mills, axe 1100 jobs

Closed mines, broken dreams in the town that nickel built

However we are not alone in this sudden realization that the economy is crashing, like Harper the other recession denier sits in the White House south of here.

US Loses 533000 Jobs in Biggest Drop Since 1974

The U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that last month, companies around the nation shed jobs at the fastest rate since the early 1970s, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest level in 15 years.
The figures suggest the year-old recession will approach or even exceed the 1981-1982 downturn in severity and support expectations that Federal Reserve officials will soon lower interest rates to levels not seen in a half century.

That was just the monthly unemployment rate it gets worse in the U.S. which does not have our style of EI as the unumber of unemployed or underemployed workers not on unemployment payments ballons.

Broader Unemployment Rate Hits 12.5%

One in Ten Americans Now Uses Food Stamps as Unemployment Continues to Rise

But still there are those economists who claim that the glass is half full, same guys that said there was no recession....

Unemployment hurts, but it's not a crisis yet

And some are down right optimistic......

Recession over by June?

And they are just plain wrong like they have been for the past year.

If recent downturns are any guide, it may be well into 2010 or perhaps even 2011 before unemployment peaks, which means the global economy should not count substantial U.S. consumer spending rebound any time soon. "The economy is now locked in a vicious downward spiral in which employment, incomes and spending are collapsing together," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

Along with the credit melt down unemployment is also a global problem.

OFF THE CHARTS A domino effect in the global work force
THE world recession is spreading, and the employment outlook is turning down almost everywhere.
Even in countries like China, the latest surveys of companies show they are reducing their work forces, providing more evidence that China cannot be the engine of the world economy when the traditional industrial powers suffer.

China fears a reverse migration
China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. Rural provinces that supplied much of China's factory manpower are watching the beginnings of a wave of reverse migration that has the potential to shake the stability of the world's most populous nation.
Fast-rising unemployment has led to an unusual series of strikes and protests. Normally cautious government officials have offered quick concessions and talk openly of their worries about social unrest. Laid-off factory workers in Dongguan overturned patrol cars and clashed with police last Tuesday, and hundreds of taxis parked in front of a government office in nearby Chaozhou over the weekend, one of a series of driver protests.

Amid the global financial crisis, China's small and medium-sized enterprises, largely labor-intensive and vulnerable to fluctuations in domestic and external demand, are affected most. In the first half of 2008, 67,000 such companies, each with a business volume exceeding 5 million yuan, closed and laid off more than 20 million employees, said the National Development and Reform Commission. That figure doesn't include service industry firms or small companies with sales of less than 5 million yuan, as there are no authoritative figures available on those categories.

A HUNDRED per cent of the global economic growth next year will come from developing countries. This, according to Stuart E. Eizenstat, former US deputy treasury secretary, is the first time in history that developing countries will shoulder the full responsibility of pulling the global economy.
The European and US economic engines are not firing and therefore will not be able to pull the world economy along as has been done previously. Some economists, including David Carbon, chief economist at DBS Bank, believe that Asia is now more capable of standing on its own.Why then should the worker in a factory in China or Malaysia be concerned when the region, by most accounts, is in a much better economic situation than in the US and other more advanced nations? Why should economies in Asia and indeed other developing countries be concerned with rising unemployment in the US and Europe?The fact is that even though Asia is not as badly off as the US, Asia's growth is also slowing. In today's highly interconnected and globalised world, what happens in one part of the world is rapidly transmitted to the other side. Contagions spread faster. Thus, with the economic meltdown in the US and massive job losses, the demand for goods and services also falls. Offshore centres in India and in other parts of the world are also feeling the heat from the US financial and economic meltdown. The production and assembly line that snakes around the world, and in some cases making its way into remote villages, has also been affected.The unemployment numbers in Europe and other developed countries are also on the uptrend, with more joining the jobless ranks every day. This, according to some, could be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s

Ok folks lets do the math. Recession + Unemployment = Depression

US "Great Depression" has begun: Best of the Boards/Blogs

There's no mystery about what the government is trying to do. After the Black October crash, the government and the Bank of England got out their history books and started looking at what happened in the Great Depression. In September 1931, as unemployment reached three million, the national government slashed interest rates and abandoned the gold standard. The value of the pound fell by 25%, just as it has today. Interest rates fell from 6% to 2% - deja vu - and this led to a modest, export-led recovery. Unemployment fell marginally in 1935 as a recovery in the housing market, mainly in the south of England, boosted economic activity. The government is clearly trying to do the same today.
However, this isn't the 1930s. For one thing, there was a lot of spare capacity then in the economy, which is not the case today. We also had the Empire. Britain erected tariff walls against imports and used the colonies - yes, we still had them - to provide cheap food imports. The 1930s depression wasn't caused by consumer spending and debt, it was a classic crisis of ineffective demand.
Also: it didn't really work. Unemployment remained stubbornly high throughout the 1930s outside the south-east of England, and it was only rearmament, as the Second World War approached, that ended mass joblessness. We are in a very different situation today. We cannot seek salvation in another unsustainable boom and we certainly cannot afford to go to war.

And depressions lead to workers revolt.

Workers at Republic Windows continue sit-in after company closes

Sit Ins and plant occupations were popular in the 1930;s as well, and are far more effective than strikes, they can lead to the only obvious solution to the capitalist crisis; workers control of the means of production and the socializtion of capital.

SEE
Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.
Common Sense
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Back To The Fifties
Here Come the Seventies
Wall Street Mantra

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Friday, November 28, 2008

Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.

The Federal Conservatives have a plan to help with the labour shortage in Alberta......mass unemployment in the rest of Canada forcing workers to move to Alberta. As a result of this mass unemployment labour rates will decline making it cheaper to build all those upgraders now on hold. Call it a ne0-con industrial strategy.

Unemployment to rise in 2009, Flaherty predicts
Unemployment is slated to rise to 6.9 per cent next year. While that's still far below the 13 per cent jobless rate in the early 1980s recession and 10 per cent in 1991-93, it will still mean hardships as thousands of jobs are shed in manufacturing, energy, mining and other sectorsFlaherty predicted the jobless rate will rise to 6.9 per cent in 2009 from 6.2 per cent now, but Porter predicted it could creep up to 7.5 per cent by the end of 2009 – with a loss of 50,000 jobs for the year.
As the unemployment rate rises, "you'll begin to see some of the steam come out of wages as the labour market loosens up," Porter said. Bruce Cran at the Consumers' Association of Canada said consumers are more pessimistic than Ottawa and are reacting by cutting their spending "From what we're hearing, it seems the government's a step or two behind the reality of what people are thinking."

Boy you can say that again, they have no plan...because having a plan well that would mean well a 'planned economy'....an anathema to neo-cons. So what do they offer us instead why the solution that got us in this mess in the first place back in the bad old days of the ninties. A made in Alberta solution that we saw under Ralph Klein. And he had no plan either except slash and burn.

Flaherty's instinct to cut out of step with world
As the rapidly worsening global recession pushes governments around the world to step up spending, Ottawa's first official response is to cut back. The fiscal update presented yesterday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will suck $6-billion out of the economy next year. But it will show the slimmest of budget surpluses, even as his own figures show Canada has slipped into recession. By cutting government spending, limiting its transfers to the provinces and padding its revenues by charging commercial banks to partake in money-market measures, Mr. Flaherty said he will narrowly avoid a deficit. But his moves are exactly the opposite of what many economists recommend in times of recession. Government spending should not be contracting when the economy could use a boost, they argue. In most other developed countries, governments are ramping up multibillion-dollar programs ranging from infrastructure spending to food stamps for the poor.

Progressive economists who have been calling for large stimulus spending reacted angrily yesterday to Ottawa's fiscal update, arguing the government used it to deliver an assault on democratic freedoms, gender, minority and labour rights in Canada."This is class and gender warfare," said economist Robert Chernomas, from the University of Manitoba. "This is the type of economic policy agenda Sarah Palin would have delivered had she been elected president in the U.S." Chernomas is among 88 Canadian economists, sociologists and political scientists who appealed for a stimulus package for the failing economy in a letter last month to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.Members of the Progressive Economic Forum, they oppose the brand of neo-liberal "laissez-faire" capitalism – the markets know best – in vogue until the recent global meltdown.Several economists interviewed yesterday by the Toronto Star said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty let down Canadians by playing politics in time of crisis. They said he failed to offer measures to save jobs or stimulate the economy, despite agreement to do so among the G20 nations – including Canada – at a recent emergency meeting in Washington.

Of course a capitalist goverment has no plan because neither do the capitalists.....

"There is what I believe is somewhat of a perfect storm coming at us," says Liz Wright, practice leader at Watson Wyatt consultancy's Human Capital Group in Toronto.
"We have both recessionary pressures and a talent shortage" that combined, will require a thoughtful approach to instituting cost-saving measures, she says.
The consultancy conducted its annual survey of workplaces in Canada earlier this year to determine companies' preparedness for an economic downturn and workforce preservation.
While the survey won't be released until next month, Ms. Wright says it found 60% of companies surveyed have contingency plans that include layoffs in the event of a recession.
"Some of the top areas they've identified in their plans are organizational restructuring, layoffs, hiring freezes and a slowing rate of salary increases," she says.
However, the survey, titled the 2008-2009 Global Strategic Rewards Report also found more than half of Canadian companies do not effectively undertake workforce planning.
"They don't really understand what their business needs are in terms of the workforce," Ms. Wright says. "Roughly 30% to 40% are conducting an analysis of some sort but the rest aren't."

SEE:
Economics 101
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas

tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,unemployment, Alberta, Stelmach, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, labour shortage, upgrader, Economy,

Monday, November 05, 2007

Can't or Won't

Actually lets be honest here Jim, you won't help, it's not that you can't help.

Ottawa urged to act on auto jobs

Can't help auto sector, Flaherty says of job cuts

After all the conservatives only believe in helping those who help themselves. A hand up not a hand out...unless it's another tax cut for business.

See:

Time For A Made In Canada Auto Industry

Unions=Competitiveness

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Fight Or Else

Under the Liberals the Canadian Armed Forces were a peacekeeping force. They attracted young unemployed Maritimer's with the promise of careers and job skills. Their recruitment drives emphasized the Canadian Armed Forces non combat role in solving crisis's. Recruitment focused on jobs training, career and used humanistic slogan; No Life Like It . These have been replaced by Harpers war mongering slogan; We Fight.

But unfortunately some folks who joined do not want to fight in Harpers war. They wanted a job.

The Canadian military has released several soldiers after they claimed conscientious objection to serving in wartorn Afghanistan, according to internal records from the National Defence department.
Steve Staples, director of the Rideau Institute, said some are enticed by flashy ads, the prospect of steady employment or the chance to help out fellow Canadians in emergencies. He believes the Canadian Forces should find other roles for those who don't want to fight in Afghanistan.
"They thought they were signing up to help Canada, not fight someone else's war in the Middle East," he said.
Scott Taylor, a former soldier who now publishes Esprit de Corps magazine, said some resist deployment because they aren't psychologically or physically ready for combat or because they get cold feet.
Many signed up to learn a trade or because they thought it would be an adventurous career path -- not to fight a war.
"There was a long time when unless you were in the infantry, you wouldn't be doing any front-line stuff where there might be some danger," he said. "So it was kind of like a lifetime of training for a war you never thought was going to happen."

Employee turnover and loyalty pose serious problems for employers of all stripes. Stress, age or other factors including opportunities for more appealing, better paid work elsewhere have valued and highly skilled people changing jobs at an unprecedented rate.
Imagine the problem the Canadian military faces in keeping its well-trained force together. More soldiers are leaving than in the past.
The reason is evident: the work is hard and the pay doesn't always compare well to what can be earned in the private sector. Despite the fact that recruitment is up, the current attrition rate is hard to accommodate, especially in the Afghan mission.

This is particularly true of our Reservists who have regular lives and joined to be part of an armed forces more interested in peacekeeping and solving humanitarian crises. Now as we run out of regular forces for combat they are being relied upon more and more to fill the gaps in Harpers War. Unfortunately when they return from active duty still do not have their jobs assured them. They have to fight to get their jobs back.

Which is why the petition below is so important to support ,as is support for NDP MP Dawn Black's private members bill.

Black wants to make sure soldiers have jobs at home

While the government talks about helping the reservists the NDP is doing something.

The Conservatives’ Throne Speech promised to look at the issue by consulting with the provinces. However, such consultation is simply unnecessary and is a delaying tactic.

“In January this year, I visited Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan and met reservists from across Canada. Many of them told me that they were unsure whether their jobs would still be waiting for them when their service was completed,” said Black. “Nobody should have to worry about being unemployed because they’ve chosen to represent Canada overseas.”

Job Protection for

Canadian Reservists

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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Reservists Speak Out On Job Protection

Comments from the Job Protection for Canadian Reservists Petition.

Andrew Siwy
Lost my job after a tour in Kandahar, Afghanistan

sarah cram
as a serving member i think it's about time. i've lost two jobs because of operations i've attended.

Jadzia Karas
I came back from tour to unemplyment although I didn't have a hard time finding a job it was yet another struggle to go through

Shawn Sheehan (PTE Sheehan)
I am affraid to do what I want to do - serve oversea's, for fear of losing my career that I've work so hard to obtain

Andreea Savan
definately agree, i lost my job after just needing 2 weeks off, for my QL5

Mary Musson
I am a Reservist with over 13 years of service and I also work fulltime in the social services. The major barrier I have to serving overseas is the lack of job protection and guarantee that after my workup training and overseas tour, I will have a job to return to. I joined the Reserves because I love my country (not for the paycheque). My mortgage is paid by my civilian job. I need to have a job to return to or I cannot commit to serving overseas.

Alex Vorobej
This is something that is long overdue! I have been willing to deploy in the past, but my employer would not allow a leave of absence. This has to stop! I have knowledge of some employers who terminate staff who ask to be deployed, or even participate in summer training programs.

Pte. Climie KR
Regimental Motto: "Non Nobis Sed Patriae" -(Not for ourselves but for our Country) - That explains why job protection should be a must

Terri-Leigh Saunders
As a Reservist myself, I am fortunate enough to have an employer who supports my efforts every time I leave on a Class B contract (3 so far) I can only wish the same for others!

Howard Torney Murray, C.D,
As a retired reservist... and business owner... I support this fully.

278 signatures in three weeks.

Have you signed?

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Save Our Troops....Jobs

Forget Red Fridays.
Forget the Yellow Ribbons.

If you really want to support our troops
sign this petition.

Canadian reservists frequently volunteer to serve our country in extended overseas missions. Unfortunately our country--with the exception of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia--does not recognize their sacrifice and some reservists return home only to face the unemployment line.

This situation is simply not fair to the men and women who put their lives on the line for their fellow Canadians.

Therefore we believe it's long overdue for the Canadian government to enact federal legislation that will protect the jobs of reservists who volunteer to serve in extended overseas missions.

While politicians in Toronto and Calgary get into a kerfuffle over posting yellow ribbons on municipal vehicles, they overlook the little fact that there is no Job Protection for Reservists in their provinces. Nor across Canada.

The Canadian reservist, unlike his American counterpart or a pregnant mother, has almost no protection for his job, so that he will usually be taking a big risk employment-wise when he serves his country.

Certain Officers and NCMs of The Royal Montreal Regiment

You can lose your life or body parts in Kandahar, Darfur, or Haiti, or where-ever Canadian Armed Forces are deployed, even at air shows. And to add insult to injury, if you survive, you can also end up losing your job on your return from active duty.

Shame! Shame! Shame! as they say in the House.

Of course prior to Harpers War most reservists and recruits viewed the Canadian Armed Forces as a job, either part time or full time, a career as it was pushed then; there was no life like it. But Harper changed all that. Now they can sign up and fight and if they don't get killed can return to the unemployment line.

Of course labour standards are a provincial responsibility and should be amended, as should Federal legislation. But the fact remains that we should not have to regulate business in the capitalist market place according to the right wing. But once again that fallacy falls flat. Like their much vaunted 'Family Values'.

Major Noseworthy joined our reserve forces in good faith, seeking to do his bit for Canada as a part-time soldier. He answered the call dutifully when asked to go to Afghanistan and fight for peace in that country. But his employer did not have the same sense of duty to Major Noseworthy or Canada for than matter.
In addition to being an army reservist, Major Noseworthy was also the manager at Humber Motors Ford in Stephenville, Newfoundland. That was until he went to Afghanistan and Humber Ford — a firm that claims to be family friendly — refused him a leave of absence to serve his country. Major Noseworthy was dismissed, leaving him to return from his tour of duty and join the line up for Employment Insurance.

And why is there no federal legislation to protect these soldiers?
Jump back to November. That’s when Lt.

-Gen. Andrew Leslie told the House of Commons defense committee that to complete the mission in Afghanistan the Canadian military would have to draw on more of the country’s 18,000 reservists.

At the time Leslie said the military was trying to persuade about 1,500 of them to sign on for two to three years of military duty.

How many of those reservists have, or will have, to quit their jobs to help the country complete its mission?

The federal government was quick to put reserve soldiers in danger by sending them to Afghanistan; the least they can do is ensure they have a job to come home to. Is that too much to ask?

As for employers who require reservists to quit before heading overseas, it’s time to do the right thing. Don’t simply give lip service to supporting the troops, actually do it. If you have a reservist working for you, at the very least grant them a leave of absence if they are willing to put their life on the line for this country.

The only value the working class has in creating capitalism is either as wage slaves or canon fodder.

The Canadian Forces Liaison Council, a group of business people who volunteer to support Canada’s reservists, say this country’s voluntary approach to job protections has worked well.

So the council’s volunteers must have cringed at news earlier this month that a reservist in Newfoundland came back from six long months in Afghanistan to unemployment.

Newfoundland, like Alberta, is among the majority of provinces which extend no job protections to reservists. Meanwhile, reservists are in high demand to fulfil Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan.

But even with service an option for reservists, it’s clear job protections should also be legislated.

That even a single soldier who has served the nation on a potentially deadly mission wind up on the unemployment line for his/her efforts is a national shame.

Surely a call for political action on this front should command more attention than the push for politicians to put ribbon decals on publicly funded bumpers.

Here! Here! As they say in the House.