Unemployment In Canada Essay Research Paper Unemployment

Unemployment In Canada Essay, Research Paper

Unemployment is a term that nobody wants to come face to face with it. .Statistics Canada defines the unemployed as those who are without jobs and who are actively looking for and available for work. (Macroeconomics: A Problem Solving Approach; 418). Many in our country suffer from unemployment and contrary to published statistics, the unemployment rate (the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labour force) is said to be much higher than the 12 per cent it is said to be.

While both the unemployment rate and duration of unemployment has risen for all age groups, the severity of increases in the unemployment rate has been the strongest for the youth population aged 15-24. The strongest increases in unemployment duration have been with older workers aged 45 and above. In the first case, it may be argued that younger workers are lacking either the demanded job skills, and/or the experience that employers are looking for in new workers. Alternatively, and possibly compounding this problem is the existence of the large baby boom of workers who have overwhelmed the capacity of employers for taking on significant numbers of new workers, even at the entry-level. In the second case, it can be argued that displaced older workers are finding that their skills, well established over a number of years with the same employer in the same industry, are not as marketable to other employers to the same degree, especially in other industries. The result is that while older workers as a group are less susceptible to unemployment, for those that do become unemployed, the adjustment process to finding new employment is proving to be much more difficult and longer. The decline of routine production jobs in the goods producing sector and the growth of both high-end and low-end jobs (in terms of earnings) in services is impacting older workers the hardest. Moreover many are not as geographically mobile and have less educational attainment on average than younger workers.

One type of unemployment is structural unemployment. .Structural unemployment is unemployment that is caused by structural changes in demand patterns. (Macroeconomics: A Problem Solving Approach; 419). A mismatch between the skills required in the new workforce and the skills held by the workers causes unemployment which rises at the peak of economic cycles. Ontario experiences such structural unemployment, and if our province experiences the expected economic expansion over the next few years, structural unemployment will continue to provide a challenge. Regardless of economic conditions, job seekers with appropriate skills are not available to meet the demand for workers in certain industries and for selected occupations. Often the shortage is for those with a strong platform of learning and employability skills, and specific occupational job skills with experience. It is generally recognized that the labour market and unemployment are no longer singly driven by economic cycles, but also by structural change. This structural component of unemployment, that which stems from a mismatch between the skills of job seekers with the skills required for available job vacancies, has risen substantially over time.

In general, workers in the past often remained in the same occupation and even job throughout their working lives. The explosion in information technology, globalization of economic activity and other structural forces are driving a dynamic transformation in employment, conditions of work, organization of work and how work is performed within occupational labels. This is requiring diverse and continually evolving skills for without which workers are less interchangeable, and adjustment is made often difficult. Unemployment has become as much a qualitative issue as quantitative, as skill requirements for many of the new and growing employment opportunities are often very different from declining areas of work. Yet the challenge of the structural unemployment problem is much more than that of a simple mismatch problem. All employment is not created equally, available in all areas of the province, offering the same level of income, or equally valued or pursued by workers.

The structural problem is particularly complicated on the basis of the quality and adequacy of incomes of available employment opportunities. There now exists the situation where some unemployed workers are unwilling to accept available employment positions for which they have the abilities and skills and could apply for and get, either because these jobs do not meet their income needs or expectations or both (often where the pay is below their previous wage for their last job which no longer exists). At the same time however, there is a strong demand for workers with highly marketable skills in knowledge and technical fields (who often also have a strong foundation of employability skills and educational base) which offer good incomes but where there is a shortage of available, qualified and/or experienced workers. Finally, there is the situation facing a number of unemployed workers, who have a significant amount of work experience but lack a specific in-demand marketable skill(s) or have skills made redundant from technological or organizational change. .This category of structurally unemployed is quite broad and ranges from workers entering the labour market with a general a