Unemployment Rates Historical Comparison East VS. West

Unemployment Rates Historical Comparison East VS. West

https://youtu.be/ASYn_YlgYM4

Last week we looked at poverty and the middle-class, and how they relate to Canadians. Now we are going to take a look at a subject that ties in these previous articles. Unemployment directly affects poverty and homelessness. In Canada, our governments could be doing much more to help this problem, federal, provincial, and municipal. Before getting into solutions, taking a look at the facts and stats around unemployment in Canada is necessary. 

Tradingeconimcs.com has some really great information in regards to this subject. They describe the unemployment rates as the “number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force.” In other words, this means that it is measuring the amount of people who are able to work, who are of age, and yet are unemployed, in Canada this includes 15 year-olds. Most recently October 2019, showed Canadian unemployment rates at 5.5% which has been fairly consistent since July bouncing between 5.5% and 5.7%. Canada did see a loss of 1, 800 full time positions, but then replaced those with 14,300 part time jobs. Which is a trend happening around the world, replacing full time jobs with part time jobs. This means that more people have jobs, leading to lower unemployment rates, but leading to lower paying jobs, meaning more poverty, or struggling families. Since 1966 Canada has averaged an unemployment rate of 7.62%. In December 1982 this was at its highest rate of 13.10%, which was due to policies and economic decisions made in the United States. The lowest rate recorded falls in at 2.90% in June of 1966. Which means our current rates are below average, but it does vary across the country and across job sectors. Canada saw drops in the manufacturing, warehousing, construction, and transportation areas, but a significant increase in administrative, finance, insurance, real estate, rental, leasing, and agricultural employment. We also saw differences based upon age, ages 15-24 saw no changes, but 24-55 year-old workers dropped in employment, while those aged 55 and over increased in employment. Not quite the shift I expected, but considering the manual labour job loss, it should not come as a real surprise. 

If we look at Stats Canada, we can see how these rates are dependant upon the province and territory one lives in. As of the summer the stats were as follows, nationally 5.7% was the average. The provincial breakdown: BC 4.3%, Alberta, 6.7 %, Saskatchewan 5.2%, Manitoba 5%, Ontario, 5.2%, Quebec 5%, New Brunswick 7.2%, PEI 9%, Nova Scotia 6.5%, Newfoundland and Labrador 12.4%. These numbers vary depending on how diversified each province is in their economy. Maritime provinces tend to rely on many seasonal jobs, and so they end up with higher rates depending on the season, otherwise many will leave for other provinces to work in the off-season. In the territories we see Yukon with 2.7%, NWT with 7.3%, and Nunavut with 14.1%. Yukon has more Ocean access and the ability to help in BC with forestry/fishery jobs, whereas NWT and Nunavut do not have these options, and are far more spread out in population bases, increasing the unemployment numbers. A good way around this issue, is for provinces and territories to diversify their economies, so when one commodity crashes, they have others to fall back on. Compared to other developed countries, Canada ranks middle of the pack in unemployment rate success. Switzerland leads the pack with 2.2% unemployment, and South Africa comes in at the bottom with 29.1%, which also reflects poverty rates in these countries. 

If we then take a closer look at the situation with the territories, conferenceboard.ca has great reasoning behind their issue. They claim to have 2 factors behind the higher than national average unemployment rates. One is that southern workers travel up north to take the higher-paying jobs that take more skill, but they do not stay to live there. The same problem the west sees with workers from the Maritimes. The second comes in the form of “economic expansion”, this has pushed more people from the north to search for jobs, but not all will be able to locate a job, resulting in more unemployment. Yukon, thankfully has avoided these issues, maintaining one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada. 

They do also provide information on how unemployment rates can vary depending on immigration status. In 2018, those born in Canada had a 5.2% unemployment rate, newly landed immigrants were at 6.1%, immigrants landed less than 5 years were at 9.4%, immigrants landed within 5-10 years were at 6.4%, and Immigrants who have lived here for more than 10 years were sitting at 5.3%. I do have an issue with these stats though. First of all, immigrants who come to Canada need to be able to support themselves and not rely on tax pay dollars to keep them afloat, these numbers simply raise our countries unemployment stats. Secondly, if they cannot maintain a job in Canada, then they should not be allowed to remain in Canada. We have a lot of homelessness and poverty in Canada, so returning people who are not working back home help us to support those who truly need the help and are Canadians. This would apply for anyone who does not have a citizenship. 

During Stephen Harper’s time as Prime Minister the country did fairly well economically, with the exception of the 2008-09 recession, in which Canada was hit less hard than the United States. Our unemployment rate hit 8.3% but since we seemed better prepared, Canada was able to not be struck as hard as the United States, who were bleeding jobs up to a total of 2.6 million jobs, according to CNN Money. Too many lost jobs in both countries, but Canada’s preparation helped the country to rebound quicker and to help other countries try to rebound. However long term the US has been able to recover to lower unemployment rates, having the US rates drop to as low as 4.9%. Canada was able to recover in a short amount of time after this, mainly due to the quick thinking of Stephen Harper, who was able to get a trade deal with China, which shortened the recovery period, although some might say China is a terrible partner to support. Then when moved forward to 2016, when Justin Trudeau was in his second year as Prime Minister, rates dropped again, which has a lot to do with failed promises, harmful bills, and failed projects. One such failure would be the $4.5 billion purchase of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which then got sidelined by the Vancouver area blocked it from going through and had it upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada (Huffington Post) Another threat would come in the form of Bill C-69, which makes a lot more red-tape in place for any future pipelines; it has been deemed the “Pipeline Killer”, according to Global News. The purchase and failure to proceed as planned with the pipeline to the BC coast, and a bill making it difficult to complete oil projects, made it very tough for the West and cost many jobs and a lot of money. Atlantic jobs were affected by this as well. Another factor in this was a struggle to recover after the oil price crashed in 2014, which has taken years to try to rebound from, a struggle that still shows today, hindered further by Federal environmental laws. To further read into this, check out conferenceboard.ca. 

Unemployment rates due to economic crashes, like in Alberta, can cause a spike in poverty and homelessness rates, which we have seen in the west. I won’t get too far into this topic though, as I have a whole previous article dedicated to that, (https://authortonypeters.blogspot.com/2019/11/keep-foreign-aid-money-in-canada.html and https://authortonypeters.blogspot.com/2019/11/trudeau-considering-supplying-vancouver.html). I will say that in 2017 Stats Canada placed 3.4 million or 9.5% of Canadians below the poverty line, which is not very clear, but they say the line is $25,000/year for single adults, but $40,000 for families, which seems low to me. Wages tend to play a big role in this, especially since so many people are having to work 2 jobs to make a living. The part time job trend has made this more pronounced. The wage of an average Canadian is $25.55, but this can be a hard stat to set with Salaries, self-employment, farming, and contract work. 

When looking to set up a policy around employment, a lot of factors must be considered, as there will always be some unemployment, largely in part to people moving to find jobs, shifting between workplaces, or a change in career. Canadians tend to have the highest rates of moving between cities and provinces to move to a labour mobility, according to conferenceboard.ca. The goal that should be kept in mind for policy setting, is to motivate all eligible workers in Canada to be able to find a job, no matter where in the country they are located. When families and locations have longer periods of unemployment it destroys and tears apart families and communities, so these periods need to be acted upon quickly. This has been the situation in the west and Prime Minister Trudeau has not followed through on promises to help the west fix this problem. The west supplied thousands of jobs for eastern workers in their oil boom, but when government policy destroyed this market the easterners flooded back east, an option that westerners are left without. CBC estimated these workers as being 20%, or 1700 people up to 10,000 at one point.  Yet the east has then criticized and hindered their progress to try to recover and diversify. Another factor that could be looked at is technology. When new tech hits the market it often cuts out jobs, leading to a spike in unemployment, but as people receive training for the new tech, the rates drop, as people get jobs working with the new technology. This creates short-term unemployment spikes, followed by longer term employment spikes. There are times, however, when new tech actually destroys a sector and takes it over, resulting in devastating job loss rates, that will struggle to recoup, so when implementing new technology, caution must be exercised to avoid unemployment because of technological automation. 

When an area has low unemployment rates, employers will struggle to find employees and wages are going to be higher, making it harder for employers to get by. High wages can also boom the housing market, making it harder to buy a home due to the inflation. Can areas really control this though? On one hand they could, but should they? A boom does have to end at some point, often times with a crash, rather than the preferred gradual decline. Which is devastating; but being able to provide jobs for a long period of time is important, meaning that preventing the boom is counter-productive. The best way to deal with the situation, is to diversify, find ways of bringing in other economic opportunities while the boom is on, that way when a crash does happen, the area has other sectors to depend on. Not everything is within a community or countries control however, a lot of this results from global and neighbouring countries globalization. American decisions affect our country greatly, and more recently, the decisions of the globe’s environmentally brain-washed movement. 

History tells of mistakes made in this regard, but also tells of successes. Provides educational opportunities in what not to do, as well as what to do. Listening to these lessons, can guide Canada through economic struggle, to help make Canada prosperous again. This does require governments that will listen. Our government cares not what happens in the west, which has made recovery, which the west is working at on their own, more challenging. All levels of government should assist areas that are struggling, not ignoring one half of the country and helping one province that has had it’s struggles. The whole country needs to be economically stable to lower unemployment rates and the rates of poverty. If we continue to have governments that ignore this, Canada will be led into further disaster. Work together to come up with a solution for the country as a whole. United we stand. Unify the West. 

Written in collaboration with Spencer Mathews

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