Apr 09 2010 07:17:00 – Source: BUS [The Canadian Press]

Economy adds a modest 17,900 jobs as unemployment rate stays put at 8.2 per cent

By Julian Beltrame

THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA _ Canada’s run at adding jobs continued last month, but

the 17,900 gain reported on Friday disappointed expectations of a

bigger pick-up.

The modest addition, all of them in the part-time category,

wasn’t enough to budge the national unemployment rate from 8.2 per

cent.

Even more disappointing is that March saw a decline of 14,200

full-time jobs, which was counter-balanced by a 32,200-increase in

part-time jobs.

Economists had been expecting 26,000 net new jobs in March after

several strong employment reports earlier in the year.

In recent weeks, almost all of Canada’s major indicators have

been positive.

Earlier this week, the Paris-based Organization of Economy

Co-operation and Development, predicted Canada will lead other G7

countries in the recovery with a massive 6.2 per cent growth rate in

the first quarter of 2010.

March’s employment data did contain a sprinkling of strong news,

including that the critical private sector added 42,400 jobs, and

that all the net job gains were employees, rather than in the

self-employment sector.

As well, Statistics Canada noted that the goods producing sector

picked up 39,800 jobs during the month, with construction adding

21,000, and manufacturing and extraction also showing gains.

“Following significant losses (212,000) in manufacturing

employment between October 2008 and June 2009, employment in this

industry has stabilized, with March being the sixth consecutive

month of little or no change,” Statistics Canada stated.

Still, the manufacturing sector remains down 286,000 workers

since October 2008, when the recession hit Canada’s shores.

In March, most of the losses came in the services sector, with

the notable exception of the 38,000 gain in the professional,

scientific and technical services category. Other services, which

included repair and maintenance and laundry services, were down

30,000, and losses also occurred in the business, building and other

support services, and in transportation and warehousing.

Regionally, Ontario and Quebec were responsible for almost all

the national increase in employment, adding 10,300 and 6,300 jobs

respectively.

Wayne MacLean from EIReform.ca giving a presentation to 120 delegates to the CAW Skilled Trades Conference held at Caesar’s Windsor on Saturday March 6^th/2010 about the Gross inequities with the Employment Insurance system in Canada and explaining different ways that they, and trade unions in general can help in the fight for a more fair and inclusive EI system.   Giving presentations to groups is another way that EIReform.ca is working to bring awareness to the problems with the EI system.  If your group would like to know more about a presentation contact us at admin@eireform.ca

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Ontario seeks Ottawa’s help as welfare cases spike

Province calling for national standard for accessing EI payments as laid-off workers exhaust their federal benefits

Bill CurryOttawa— From Monday’s Globe and Mail
Last updated on Monday, Mar. 15, 2010 07:55AM EDT

Job seekers look at the ads on display at the National Job Fair and Training Expo in Toronto on March 31, 2009.

Welfare cases are on the rise in Canada as laid-off workers exhaust their federal employment insurance benefits and turn to provincial social assistance programs for help.

Ontario in particular is calling on Ottawa to step in with a further expansion of federal EI so that provinces and workers are treated the same no matter where they live in Canada. Because EI is easier to get in regions of historically high unemployment, the province says many Ontarians who lost their jobs during the recession were left out. Government documents also show that the way Ottawa distributes EI money across Canada for training programs is not based on population, opening the program to criticism that it is unfair to some provinces.

A Human Resources and Skills Development Canada document entitled, Employment Insurance: Time to Rethink, warns that the program “disenfranchises” the self-employed, immigrants, part-time workers and recent graduates.

The calls for further EI changes suggest the $7-billion in temporary measures Ottawa is spending to protect jobs during the recession has not silenced debate over the adequacy of Canada’s social safety net.

The rising number of welfare cases is a splash of bad economic news amid a recent string of positive reports noting Canada’s rising GDP and corporate profits and declining unemployment. (On Friday, a report from Statistics Canada showed the economy produced another 21,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate had dropped to a 10-month low of 8.2 per cent.)

It is also a development that is largely hidden, as only a few provinces publish welfare statistics, and the federal government does not report how many Canadians run out of EI benefits.

Canada’s three most populous provinces – British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec – report welfare data, and all three show increases.

Social assistance cases in B.C. are up 14 per cent between January, 2009, and January, 2010. Ontario’s numbers are up 11 per cent over the same period, while Quebec reports a lower increase of 2 per cent from December, 2008, to December, 2009.

Past recessions have shown similar patterns in which welfare cases rise in spite of an improving economy. Some observers believe the welfare caseload is at its peak and could start to decline as summer seasonal work becomes available.

Ontario Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur said the number of cases has risen because those who qualified for EI are exhausting their benefits, and because Ontario is not a region of traditionally high unemployment.

“Ontario’s employees and Ontario workers should be entitled to EI at the same level as any other worker in the country,” she said in an interview.

Federal opposition parties have called for a national standard for accessing EI instead of the existing system, which adjusts automatically by region over time based on unemployment rates.

Ms. Meilleur said the system has made some positive adjustments, but still leaves many Ontarians in a tougher spot than others.

Federal Human resources documents written in 2008 and released this month to Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin include similar concerns. One document points out that EI money for skills training is not spread to the provinces on a per capita basis and “clearly exacerbates the perceived inequities” of the program. It points out that Newfoundland would receive 1.6 per cent of the funding if it were a per capita system, yet it receives between 5 and 9 per cent.

In an interview, federal Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said her government brought in major temporary expansions of the EI system – including an extension of work sharing programs announced in the 2010 budget.

“Obviously, we’re not out of the woods yet in terms of the recession. We did notice going in that it was going to take a lot of people longer to find jobs,” she said. As for the government documents listing groups that do not qualify for EI, Ms. Finley noted that the benefits are only for those who pay EI premiums.

“It is insurance,” she said. “Just as with any other form of insurance, you have to pay premiums before you can collect the benefits. That’s the whole principle behind it.”

****

CASELOAD INCREASES

Only a handful of provinces release data on welfare case loads. As for employment insurance, Statistics Canada and Human Resources Development Canada are working on a way to report the number of people who have exhausted their federal benefits, but there is no indication as to when this work will be done. Canada’s three most populous provinces do report social assistance caseloads. Here’s a look at how they have changed:

British Columbia

Jan. 2009: 115,782

Jan. 2010: 132,304

Percentage increase: 14.3 per cent

Ontario

Jan. 2009: 739,048

Jan. 2010: 819,084

Percentage increase: 10.8 per cent

Quebec

Dec. 2008: 476,196

Dec. 2009: 485,114

Percentage increase:

1.9 per cent

Bill Curry

• Pamela Steel
• |
• Mar 10, 2010 – 10:27 AM
• |
• 0

This article reproduced from cottagecountry.ca, special thanks to Spinner for getting it to us.

Rate almost doubles between January 2009 and 2010

HUNTSVILLE —This is the seventh article in our Poverty in Muskoka series.

Unemployment continues to rise in the region.

The Muskoka-Kawarthas economic region suffered the highest increase in unemployment of all Ontario economic regions according to a labour force trends survey from a recent issue of the Muskoka-Kawarthas Area Labour Market Monitor, a monthly report produced by the local labour market information analyst.

“Employment in the Muskoka-Kawarthas economic region decreased by 6,600 from Dec. 2008 to Dec. 2009. All job losses came from full-time employment  (-7,800).

“The number of unemployed people increased by 7,200 from December 2008 to December 2009, causing the unemployment rate to rise from 4.9 per cent to 8.7 per cent, the highest increase among all Ontario economic regions,” the monitor reported.

In January, the unemployment rate in the region continued to rise to 9.5 per cent according to Statistics Canada. There aren’t enough jobs for the demand according to Rick Williams, commissioner of community services for the District of Muskoka.

He also stresses that unemployment figures do not fully reflect the number of people out of work.

“In Muskoka a lot of people are not eligible for EI payments since many employers are informal or short term employers,” he said.

Informal employers offer day-to-day work or casual employment, therefore neither the employer nor the employee are contributing to employment insurance.

“Eligibility is 40 weeks of employment prior to lay off so many persons do not have that amount of eligibility,” he added.

Due to the casual nature of employment many people in Muskoka who lose their jobs end up moving quickly to social assistance because they quickly run out of savings and assets.

“We have seen our Ontario Works caseload grow from around 500 cases two-and-a-half years ago to 800 cases in March of 2010,” said Williams. “That’s a substantial increase.”

Since the overall numbers are increasing so dramatically there is no particular group seeing their situation improve.

“Single younger males are probably the group that has been the hardest hit in the recent year, year and a half … employment for males generally – in manufacturing and construction has gone down,” said Williams.

He sees the biggest driver of unemployment in the region as manufacturing sector job loses and a downturn in the stability of the construction sector.

Muskoka has many self-employed people in the contracting and construction field.

“A lot of people are vulnerable for two reasons,” said Williams. “They don’t have the cushion of EI and secondly they only have a month or two worth of savings, so fairly quickly they’re into financial pressures – difficulty paying bills. They’re only two months away from insolvency … we see a lot of that.”

Williams has had a lot of people requesting help “before they hit the wall.”  “They might lose (their) homes … we try to help where the situation is sustainable. Especially we provide assistance where children are involved,” he said.

The seasonality of work available in Muskoka is at the heart of many of our employment problems say experts.

“Clearly the financial struggle has resulted in significant job loss and an increased dependence on the retail wage sector includes service jobs like hospitality that primarily creates minimal wage jobs – profoundly affected by the seasonality of our economy,” said Beth Ward, YWCA Muskoka executive director.

“One of the biggest challenges is the fact that we are in a hospitality tourism region which is so very seasonal,” said YMCA Employment Resource team leader Nancy West.

“A labour market that tends to pay close to minimum wage in a lot of cases – people are living on very low income and then they lose their jobs every fall when layoffs happen. We are seasonal – layoffs happen – that’s a really difficult trend for people to pull themselves out of – it keeps families in the swing of lower income jobs to unemployment to low income jobs – Its brutal. Minimum wage is going up March 31 to $10.25 — at 40 hours a week, if they worked all year around that’s still only $21,320 a year.”

She continued to say that with year round jobs unavailable, people fall back to unemployment.

“Which is below the poverty line,” she said. “It’s hard to get out of that cycle. It’s hard to afford to get more education and get out of that cycle.

The employment centre recently hosted a job fair at Huntsville Place Mall. There were 40 booths run by employers and about 650 job seekers turned out. The Canadian Forces were there recruiting, as was Fowlers but most of the employers were offering seasonal service jobs.

“A lot of service employers were there. The big three – Hidden Valley, Deerhurst and Grandview – were there along with some motels and a restaurant,” said West.

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