Canada’s Private Sector Stumbles

My take on today’s grisly Labour Force Survey follows: Private-Sector Meltdown Canada’s private sector eliminated 95,000 jobs in July. In other words, nearly 1% of Canadian private-sector jobs disappeared in a single month. The creation of 30,000 public-sector jobs and 11,000 self-employed positions offset less than half of this loss. Although manufacturing accounts for below a fifth of private-sector employment, […]

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Labour’s Agenda

http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/policy_papers I commend to your attention the policy papers which will be presented for discussion and debate at the CLC Convention, which convenes the week after next in Toronto.  Progressive economists  Mike McCracken and Armine Yalnizyan will help kick-off discussion on the Good Jobs and Growing Gap papers respectively. Though neither they nor the progressive economics community had a direct […]

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Revised TD Bank Report

As foreshadowed by Andrew, TD Economics has addressed the concerns raised on this blog about its April 15 report by replacing this document with a revised April 16 version. The new endnotes cite the CLC publications and acknowledge that they were “inappropriately left out of the original verson [sic] of the report.” TD has also amended its figures. The April 15 […]

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TD Bank Echos CLC (Updated)

Today, TD Economics released a very interesting paper on the Canadian labour market in 2007. I was pleased to see it highlight many of the same general trends that Andrew and I emphasized: the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs, the increase in part-time work, the rise of self-employment, and wages barely outpacing inflation in Alberta. Parts of the TD paper […]

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Dofasco Redux

When the United Steelworkers ended the recent drive to organize Dofasco, Steve Arnold of The Hamilton Spectator posted the following: Today’s decision by the United Steelworkers to back off from the Dofasco organizing effort closes, at least for now, a bitter and divisive debate in the company. It’s clear before the USW comes back to Dofasco it has to mount […]

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US (EPI) Studies on Manufacturing

EPI News Focus on Manufacturing With layoffs and cutbacks becoming routine, it is tempting to write off U.S. manufacturing as an anachronism. However, a new set of EPI reports shows that actually making things remains an essential part of the economy, and can continue to be a source of good jobs.   The manufacturing sector supported 14 million jobs in […]

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The Dollar and the Manufacturing Jobs Crisis

Jim Stanford and I appeared before the Industry Committee yesterday to speak to the impacts of the high dollar, particularly on manufacturing. Chaired by James Rajotte, the Committee has done some good work on manufacturing and  has worked in a relatively constructive and not totally partisan way to develop some useful reports and recommendations. Their report last year did urge […]

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The Ontario-Quebec Deal: TILMA 2.0 ?

Today, Premiers McGuinty and Charest kicked off “free trade” negotiations between their provinces. The key question is whether this process will be a sweeping “race to the bottom” like the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) or a focused effort to develop common standards in the few areas where problems may exist. As usual, the rhetoric about “inter-provincial […]

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The Manufacturing Jobs Crisis: Why Should We Care? What is Causing it?

Introduction The Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ) and the United Steelworkers recently commissioned a major, technical report on the manufacturing sector from the economic consulting firm Informetrica. (The study “Economic Effects of Structural Changes in Manufacturing: A Retrospective View” is available from http://www.informetrica.com/IL_ManReport1_Final.pdf). The study confirms a great deal of what […]

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Today’s Labour Force Survey: The High Dollar Hits Good Jobs

My take on Statistics Canada’s release follows: The Dollar Hits Parity During the reference period for this Labour Force Survey, September 15 through 22, the Canadian dollar reached parity with the American dollar. Today’s release does not capture the consequences that have begun to play out since then. A rapidly-rising exchange rate has increased the price of Canadian-made products in […]

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Informetrica on Manufacturing

The United Steelworkers have put out the following press release: Research confirms value of manufacturing to Canada’s economy TORONTO, Oct. 4 /CNW/ – An interim report on manufacturing prepared by Ottawa-based econometrics firm Informetrica shows that manufacturing plays an important role in supporting all sectors of the economy, and has been hurt by both the recent appreciation of the dollar […]

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Cut Interest Rates

The Canadian Labour Congress sent the following letter to the Bank of Canada today. September 20, 2007 David A. Dodge Governor Bank of Canada 234 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G9 Dear Governor Dodge: I write to urge you to reduce interest rates by 0.5% on October 16th to match the recent US rate cut. My letter of June 27th […]

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Recent Immigrants and the Manufacturing Crisis

Statistics Canada today released a study on immigrants in the job market, based on the recent inclusion of questions identifying immigration status in the Labour Force Survey. It’s no surprise to learn that unemployment levels are significantly higher among recent immigrants. In 2006, the unemployment rate among very recent immigrants (in Canada 5 years or less) was 11.5%, and it […]

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Cameron on Stelco

The following column by Duncan Cameron is from rabble.ca: With the takeover of Stelco by U.S. Steel, Canada loses its last domestically owned steel producer. Despite urgings from the Steelworkers, the Canadian Autoworkers, and the Canadian Labour Congress, our provincial and federal governments have been unwilling to adopt a strategy to provide national direction to natural resource companies, and key industries. […]

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Exchange Rate Appreciation and Manufacturing Investment

An interesting article just published by my friend Robert Blecker (American University) reinforces our concerns regarding the long-run impact of the loonie’s recent appreciation on the size and competitiveness of Canada’s manufacturing industry. Here’s the formal citation & abstract: The Economic Consequences of Dollar Appreciation for US Manufacturing Investment: A Time-Series Analysis Author: Robert A. Blecker a Affiliation: a American […]

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The Manufacturing Crisis and Greater Toronto

It is notable that TD Economics is much more concerned about the scale and impacts of the manufacturing crisis than colleagues like Jeff Rubin at CIBC – not to mention Steve Poloz of Export Development Canada. TD’s recent report on the state of the Toronto economy http://www.td.com/economics/special/db0707_gta.pdf notes that 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the Greater Toronto Area […]

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The OECD on Why Manufacturing Still Matters

The OECD  have released a modestly interesting, highly empirical  report on the changing nature of the manufacturing sector in advanced industrial economies.  http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/17/37607831.pdf It speaks, somewhat tangentially, to the issue of whether “deindustrialization” should be of concern to policy-makers. As is well-known, the declining share of manufacturing employment has been pervasive across OECD countries since 1970… though the study finds […]

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An Update on Canada’s Two Economies

What follows is a revised and extended version of the comments I made at a panel on the Canadian economy organized by the Bank of Canada and the IMF at the recent Canadian Economics Association meetings. An Update on Canada’s Two Economies – Implications for Workers and for Monetary Policy Andrew Jackson Chief Economist Canadian Labour Congress The Hidden Jobs […]

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Alcan and Interest Deductibility

The following op-ed, which is printed in today’s Vancouver Sun, picks up some key themes from this blog:     Subsidizing the transfer of jobs abroad Vancouver Sun Monday, June 4, 2007 Page: A7 Section: Editorial Byline: Erin Weir Source: Special to the Sun At a time when Kitimat and many other Canadian communities are losing manufacturing jobs, why would […]

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There’s blood on the factory floors: where’s Ottawa?

For once the headline-writers at the Globe gave my latest column (on continuing job losses in manufacturing) a better headline than the one I suggested (which in this case was a bland one: “Why manufacturing matters” zzzzzzzzzzz). Mind you, even their “blood on the floor” headline was not as eye-grabbing as Philip Cross’s year-old quote about carcass-hackers in Brandon Manitoba. […]

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