Comments on: Unemployment: Getting Better for Some

By: Sam Hill

Sam Hill — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:39:54 +0000

In the equation to obtain employment with a decent wage,
education is only one weighted factor. Economic policies
and politics have much more weight in all feasible scenarios. This something educators and politicians failed to tell the the public and it’s citizens. Many students
spending years working at a degree. To end up disillusioned,
under employed and in tuition loan debt.

By: Tay

Tay — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:22:29 +0000

I’m not sure it’s really getting any better. Many people have exhausted their regular benefits, plus the extensions. That doesn’t mean they have found a job. It simply means they no longer qualify to file. And for those who ended up unemployed without having enough work behind them to qualify in the first place, they’re still out there without a job. We’re just not counting them in the numbers.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:01:55 +0000

Is it a good counter-recession strategy to be a man in woman-dominated profession? I started my graduate studies in librarianship in 2007 and I’m job hunting in that field so far. It strikes me like a good idea. Maybe more men should switch over to female dominated professions?

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:24:27 +0000

Not properly recognizing immigrant credentials is significant problem in Canada, or more properly put it’s an issue of integrating immigrants into Canadian society.

In many cases the problem is with the professional association, such as the BC Medical Association (doctors), which limits the number of new licenses to practice each year in the province and has a quota for foreign trained doctors even if their credentials are recognized. Moreover the rules typically force the foreign-educated doctor to practice in a remote town for a number of years before they are allowed to move their license to a more urban place like Vancouver or Victoria or Kelowna.

Each Canadian province has it’s own various professional association that serve to keep newcomers out, or to set difficult rules under which newcomers have to re-write certain university exams or courses in order to become licensed in Canada.

The result is Canada also has doctors and lawyers and engineers driving taxi cabs, sometimes while they study or raise the money to take these exams.

By: Michael Wells

Michael Wells — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:20:34 +0000

Tim,

I’m not sure where you get your numbers. The recent Oregon referendum raised Oregon’s corporate rate from 6.6% to a high of 7.9%, and the minimum corporate tax from $10 to $150.

By: Tim from MA

Tim from MA — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:52:05 +0000

While I think this is only one of many factors in determining where businesses locate I can’t help but notice that BC and Vancouver are going to quite soon have a corporate tax rate of 25% compared to rates in Oregan recently raised in a referendum of 40+%. Now of course in BC you have to factor in the new HST consumption tax that Oregon doesn’t have although most significantly the GST and HST are rebattable on export which provides a nice little export subsidy for BC

By: Michael Wells

Michael Wells — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:30:44 +0000

This is an aside, but I was blown away by it, overcoming my images of Asian sweatshops — which I’m sure exist but aren’t the only story. It’s from the blog of the designer/prototype folks mentioned above. They were just on a trip through SE Asia looking at manufacturing facilities for clients.
http://www.fyidesigndept.com/blog/2010/02/fyi-hanoi.html

It’s like when China first opened to outsiders, a friend who’s Chinese American went there and because she could blend in got some great pictures of real life, unlike the posed shots taken by most tourists.

By: Michael Wells

Michael Wells — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:12:40 +0000

Wendy,

Do you treat your educated immigrants better than we do? Are there doctors driving cabs and teachers waiting tables for lack of the proper accreditation? Along with the visa problems, it’s a wonder anyone comes to the States at all.

Two of Canada’s educated immigrants are my running buddy’s step-son and his Swedish wife. They have a design and prototype business in BC, working for US companies designing things that will be built in Asia. I think they moved North for the good snowboarding, but the business has gotten great support from the government to help them hire staff and expand.

I think we’re in for a doubly tough decade, adjusting to the new economy and cleaning up the damage of the Bush years.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:53:34 +0000

Another interesting perspective on the Canadian recession and the lack of employment loss is here:

http://sso.conferenceboard.ca/Economics/hot_eco_topics/default/10-01-25/Recession_An_Unwanted_Import.aspx

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:11:41 +0000

Michael,

I too have been waiting to see what Richard says about this. My take would be that I’m not sure that Canada is done with the reset (small r), but I think the start of the reset may well have been in 1991. It’s been a long process of removing protectionist barriers and becoming more intertwined with the global economy.

An advantage has come from welcoming immigrants, including many with high levels of education. 50% of immigrants to Canada have university educations in contrast to 20% of Canadian-born residents. They seem ready to work and compete in the 21st century economy, and thereby have a much lower rate of collecting welfare and other government hand outs.

But this process has also had its painful years, as those graphs hint at. If the Canadian experience partially foreshadows that of the US, then the US is in for a tough decade.