Government ministers like to talk about the jobs created on their watch, but over the last few years lots of people have been creating their own jobs. Three quarters of the increase in employment since 2008 has come from self-employment. Source: ONS employment statistics Some have hailed this as the sign of a new entrepreneurial … Continue reading
That data shows that the government’s claims about strong job growth, like Flaherty’s above, are more than a little misleading. A slightly better measure is the unemployment rate. Of the seven years after the Conservatives took office, Canada’s unemployment rate was higher than the OECD average for four years and lower for three. The latest … Continue reading
The surge in contract and “temp” jobs since the recession ended is likely to continue, a range of experts have said, in part because of slack in the labor market and decisions by many corporations to maximize flexibility in their work force. CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. said in a new forecast on Thursday … Continue reading
Twenty years later and what have we learned from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? Nearly 700,000 U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced, union density in the United States, Mexico and Canada fell and income inequality has increased. The AFL-CIO’s new report, NAFTA at 20, discusses how current U.S. trade policy has failed to … Continue reading
Unemployment in France rose 0.9% in February, the labour ministry announced Wednesday, with almost 3.35m now jobless. Following a pasting in local elections last Sunday, the latest data is more grim news for President François Hollande. The second round of voting will be held this Sunday. The data show that the number of people registered … Continue reading
Reality, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper is discovering, can poke holes in the most elegant of theories. In this case, the theory is the Conservative view of how Canada’s economy works, a view that goes something like this: Yes, the country suffered an economic recession but that’s over. Yes, there is still high unemployment — … Continue reading
How can the transitional government begin to address youth unemployment in light of low growth? In the two decades prior to the 2011 uprising, Tunisia has grown at a steady rate, but the economy failed to produce jobs. Unemployment increased in 2011 to over 18 percent and remains high at around 17 percent. There are … Continue reading
Thousands of low-skilled food manufacturing jobs are likely to go unfilled as the industry focuses on filling high-skilled jobs vacancies, the industry has warned. There is a large demand for workers with basic skills in UK food manufacturing, despite the large number of graduates seeking jobs. Although the sector faces a skills shortage, most people … Continue reading
The increase in labor force participation, and consequently, the increase in employment of women is one of the most striking trends in the twentieth century. Although this trend is likely due to the complex interaction of many factors, available research in economics recognizes, among other causes, the important role of medical innovation in shaping labor … Continue reading
Canadian businesses reported 200,000 job vacancies in December, down 21,000 compared with 12 months earlier. There were 6.3 unemployed people for every job vacancy, up from 5.7 in December 2012. The increase in the unemployment-to-job vacancies ratio was the result of fewer job vacancies, as the number of unemployed people was little changed. Unemployment-to-job vacancies ratio increases in Alberta and Saskatchewan In Alberta, there were 2.3 unemployed people … Continue reading
Job opportunities in the market may have become fewer, but that is not stopping 85% of the total workforce from eyeing greener pastures. Most employees are either actively looking for a job or open to talking to recruiters about relevant opportunities, says an annual exit survey by LinkedIn. The number of employees looking to exit … Continue reading
Latest estimates show that the number of people in employment continued to increase. Unemployment continued to fall, as did the number of economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64. These changes continue the general direction of movement over the past two years. The unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds was 19.8% … Continue reading
“Employment prospects for teens and young adults in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas plummeted between 2000 and 2011” write Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, and Martha Ross with Walter McHugh and Sheila Palma in The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults on brookings.edu. On a number of measures—employment rates, labor force underutilization, unemployment, and year-round joblessness—teens … Continue reading
Three issues — unemployment, the economy in general, and dissatisfaction with government — dominate when Americans name the most important problem facing the nation. Nineteen percent mention unemployment or jobs, 18% say dissatisfaction with government, and 17% the economy in general. Unemployment edged out the other two issues in February, but dropped slightly in March. … Continue reading
AUSTRALIA’S jobs market roared back to life in February, generating almost 50,000 new jobs, more than enough to offset announced high-profile losses at Qantas, Alcoa, Holden and Toyota. An increase in the number of people looking for work helped keep the national unemployment rate unchanged at 6 per cent for the second month in a … Continue reading