Politics & Policies

JobCentre – It sucks writes libcom

Having been gainfully unemployed for a number of months, I’ve recently returned to take a swim in the shark-infested, soul-destroying, disease-ridden hell hole that is the job market. It’s also the first time I’ve been, ehhem, lucky enough to be able to claim dole. This means applying for jobs and making a fortnightly trip to … Continue reading →

Public sector jobs crowding out private jobs – Sheer mystical gobbledygook writes Krugman

Both Dean Baker and Josh Bivens weigh in Robert Samuelson’s outburst at the New York Times for saying that the government can too create jobs. (He went so far as to call it “flat-earth” thinking). Sadly, Samuelson’s attitude is widely shared — even, at least rhetorically, by Barack Obama. So let me not focus on … Continue reading →

Canada – Employment Insurrance – New claims established after Sept. 15 are entitled to five fewer weeks of benefits

The Canadian government has quietly not renewed an employment insurance pilot program designed to benefit people across the country who live in regions with high unemployment. The Extended Employment Insurance Benefits Pilot Project provided an extra five weeks of benefits to people living in 21 designated regions across the country. The program was introduced in … Continue reading →

Peugeot gets government rescue

PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA) unveiled a government-backed refinancing deal for its lending arm as the struggling French automaker’s financial position deteriorated further, sending its stock to historic lows. Europe’s second-biggest automaker said it was close to an agreement with creditor banks on 11.5 billion euros ($14.9 billion) of refinancing and had won state guarantees on … Continue reading →

UK – Hiring secret agent’s apprentice

How’s this for a job title – secret agent’s apprentice? The British government is recruiting teenage apprentice spies and codebreakers without university degrees in a bid to deepen the talent pool of its intelligence services for the era of cyberterorrism and cyberwarfare. Foreign secretary William Hague announced the programme on Thursday in a speech at … Continue reading →

BC – Universities warn of jobs crisis

The province’s leading universities have fired a warning shot across the bow of Premier Christy Clark’s vaunted jobs agenda. Without increased government funding of postsecondary education and better financial aid for hard-pressed students, B.C. faces a bleak future of jobs going begging, according to a report presented Thursday to the legislature’s select finance committee. “This … Continue reading →

Europe not doing enough on jobs and growth

The national governments of Europe are not doing enough to create jobs and growth. The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, delivered this message after meeting with representatives of employers and trade unions in Brussels. Barroso called for immediate action. The crisis is going on unabated. Average unemployment in the EU is over … Continue reading →

Update – US – Omitted California claims: Calif. official under-reporting was Obama campaign donor?

The reason for the massive drop in jobless claims two weeks ago was because the BLS forgot to include California in their report. (US – Jobless claims dropped because BLS omitted California) Now we learn that the Calif. official whose agency under-reported unemployment stats was Obama campaign donor Marty Morgenstern, the secretary of the California agency … Continue reading →

Partnership – OECD: Getting the young into jobs (video)

Graduate – Employability: Partnership is key to success

“Many employers still feel that graduates are missing key skills when they leave university. We take a look at some of the ways MathWorks[1] is collaborating with universities to bridge the skills gap between education and industry.” writes Keri Allan in Bridging the skills gap on eandt.theiet.org. “Mathworks works closely with both universities and industry as its computational tools, which include MATLAB and Simulink, are … Continue reading →

Manufacturing Jobs Across Presidential Administrations : gains during Democratic terms, significant losses under the Republican

State-level manufacturing job growth has varied across the 16 presidential administrations since 1948, with significant gains in most states across the seven Democratic terms and significant losses under the nine Republican, according to The Manufacturing Jobs Score, 1949-2011, a new analysis of official government data by the Keystone Research Center (KRC) and Iowa Policy Project … Continue reading →

Canada – Employment Insurance – EI recipients participating in employability measures should be exempted from the application of the proposed provisions on convenient job

Canada – Employment Insurance – EI recipients participating in employability measures should be exempted from the application of the proposed provisions on convenient job

US – Closing The Jobs Deficit

The latest data on employment in the United States confirm that the American economy continues to recover from the Great Recession of 2008-2009, despite the slowdown engulfing the other G-20 nations. Indeed, the pace of private-sector job growth has actually been much stronger during this recovery than during the recovery from the 2001 recession, and … Continue reading →

US – The economic Elysium predicted by backers of free trade prior to its passage never developed

America’s current economic unwinding didn’t begin on Wall Street in 2008, as is often reiterated. Its genesis lies in the affluence-to-poverty trade regiments enacted by President Clinton, beginning in 1993. Seduced by assurances that free trade would create millions of new high-paying jobs in the United States, Democrats, aided by Republican politicos like Newt Gingrich, … Continue reading →

UK – Migration of low-skilled workers is too high says Ed Miliband

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has claimed that migration of low-skilled workers into the UK is too high. Miliband, riding high after a widely-praised party conference speech calling for a return to “one nation” politics, rejected the government’s immigration caps as a solution because they did not cover workers arriving from the European Union. Instead … Continue reading →