Job Losses of 34,400 in December Make for a Grim Outlook in 2009

Statistics Canada announced on Friday that 34,400 jobs were lost in December, following November’s loss of 70,600 jobs. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called these numbers “troubling” but maintains that the situation in the US is a lot worse. Our neighbours down south lost over 1 million jobs in the same time period. Although, with a population that is 10 times our size, their loss of 1 million jobs has virtually the same impact on the unemployment rate. As the unemployment rate down south hit a 16 year high of 7.2%, our rate rose to 6.6% and does not look like it will decline anytime soon. With such interdependent economies, there is no doubt that the situation in the United States will have a negative impact on Canadians. 2008 was the worst year for job loss in the US since World War II and this makes 2009’s outlook even grimmer for Canadians as the crisis continues to make its way north, according to both Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

On a more positive note, Canada managed to gain 98,300 jobs over the course of 2008. However, this is due to the fact that the economic crisis hit Canada much later in the year and only recently have we been experiencing such high job losses. More frightening is that over 90% of the jobs that were created were part time jobs. Most people looking for work are getting stuck with part time jobs and only 7,100 full time jobs were created in 2008. Part time jobs mean less hours, meaning less money for the employee to support their family and to spend in our economy.

With such a rise in unemployment, the stimulus package seems like the only thing that can save the jobs of so many Canadians. If stimulating the economy in such a manner fails, I would not be surprised if our unemployment rate pushes past 10%.

To help Canadians without jobs, we have our trusty employment insurance (EI) program. However, many people are complaining that EI benefits are much smaller than they used to be and that the benefits do not last for a long enough period of time. To further complicate matters, the Canadian Labour Congress reports that over 60% of unemployed people who try to get EI do not qualify for any benefits, even though they have paid EI premiums. The government must work on improving this program or else many Canadians will have trouble putting food on their tables as the recession continues.

Canada must take action to create full time jobs for Canadians and they must do so now. Spending on meaningful infrastructure projects will certainly create many jobs and provide opportunities for those seeking full time employment. However, this does not prevent the loss of jobs in the first place. Hopefully, the stimulus package will help prevent job loss but the bottom line is that unless companies innovate, increase productivity and learn to fend for themselves, the stimulus package will just run dry and we will fall further into recession.

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Tags: Economy, harper, job loss, jobless, recession, unemployment

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.