Tuesday, February 10, 2009


This is The Labour Force Survey provided by Statistics Canada in regarding with the monthly measure of the number of unemployed in Canada. This measure provides an indication of the country's economic condition.

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SUMMARY
Canada has never seen a monthly job drop like this, Statistics Canada said Friday, not even during the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s. The unemployment rate soared to 7.2 per cent, from 6.6 per cent in December. That is approximately 129,000 jobs in loss in the economy -- the biggest monthly decline for more than three decades. On top of that, almost all of the Canadian job losses were full-time positions, and unemployment rate fell mostly among core-age adults, 25 to 54 years, as well as among youths aged 15 to 24.

Our Federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, have been working closely with the federal government and other involving parties in jumpstarting the budget for the stimulus plan.

- "If it is necessary to do more, we will do more," said Flaherty.

- "Canada is in for a very difficulty year. We, regrettably, are going to have to expect continuing job losses in Canada." Flaherty told reporters.



CONNECTION

This article talks about how Canada is currently experiencing the foremost breakdown in employment rate since the 1980s. A report from Statistics Canada shows that a shocking increased in percentage (0.6%) from the participation rate has been fired / laid off in just a month time since last year December.
One of the main reasons for the existing lack of employment opportunities in the current Canadian market was the stock market crash-down in 2008; which, like an unstoppable whirlpool that drowned the rest of the global economy down within it.

The series of dreadful events that it brought have cause many individual's disposable income to decrease dramatically and government/corporations' investments have been reduced and reduced.


REFLECTION

I have noticed the quietness in the malls, and in other major department stores.People are not spending like they use to be, everyone is trying to save as much as they can, consumers are thinking twice before what they buy.

When employers are having difficulty in selling their products they will not need as many workers. A decrease in the level of spending by consumers will result in reduced sales for businesses. If consumers are not spending money on goods and services, employers will not need to hire as many. This results in unemployment.

People who are unemployed will not spend money and those who are still employed are afraid of spending. Ultimately, economy is going to decline even more because spending is the main factor of keeping a good economy. Hence, government should impose a tax free financial investment plan or some sort of decrease in tax. This will allow individuals to slowly increase their income.


3 comments:

Jenny Z said...

I agree that more unemployment will lead to a worse economic situation. As Christy said, unemployment means no income, which lead to less spending. Less spending means less sell for companies. Because companies are not selling out their products and have excess inventory, they are likely to cutoff more workers. This consequence is repeating itself. This is a demand-deficient type of unemployment. It is resulted from a lack of overall spending in the economy. In order to solve the problem, I think government should encourage customers to spend money by lowering tax or have better policy to ensure people’s income.

By Jenny Z.

Henry Ma said...

Unemployment continues to increase as there are no signs of any improvements. Already, at least 120,000 jobs have been already cut from companies to retain financial securities. In order for our economy to revive itself to a balanced state, we need to lower job cuts and provide some sort of interest plans as it will attract consumers to give money to the banks. This will avoid high risks of bankruptcy and unemployment. Not only that, but it will save government's money. Instead of having them set up bailouts for banks, the money can be funded into something more useful. Also, unemployment can lead to a decrease in economy activities such as spending. In previous chapters, we learned that having a slow economy with little activity, will force companies such as retail stores to offer less staff because there is no need more workers. Hence, this pattern of slow activity-less spending-people getting laid off will continue to grow.

Harry said...

Although employees are getting laid off, more than 129,000 jobs can be expected to be lost in the future. It will only get worst from here because there is less spending from people who have no income and the participation rate will go down significantly. A simple way to solve this problem is to ask the government to create community service jobs to get people back on track and even to people who didn't have a job in the first place. This will ensure people to have an income.

Harry Lam