The Labour Force Survey results for July were released yesterday, and while there was positive job growth, it wasn’t quite as robust as had been expected. The recovery remains uneven, but some of the narratives and commentary aren’t really helping when it comes to adjusting to the reality of this stage of the pandemic (which isn’t even post- yet).
Unemployment rate continues decline, still well above pre-pandemic levels. 27.8% of unemployed have been without work for 6+ months pic.twitter.com/YchHowB0jY
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) August 6, 2021
This chart is very interesting. The weighted line tries to account for changes in composition of jobs/occupations cuz when most lower wage workers are laid off, it will otherwise look like wages are way up. Quite a gap between weighted & unweighted averages. pic.twitter.com/UHz1gIL8Wj
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) August 6, 2021
A lot of the narratives are still being driven by the likes of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which continues to rail about CERB and its successor suite of benefits that they claim are providing a “perverse incentive” for people to stay home, but that doesn’t seem to fit the reality, which is that the market is shifting. A lot of people who were in these service-industry jobs either moved on during the pandemic because it (and the government benefits) afforded them the opportunity to do so – which is why you have people complaining that their favoured servers at their local watering holes didn’t come back, and you have nineteen-year-olds who just got their Smart Serve certification replacing them. But another narrative is also bubbling up, where we also have a cohort who aren’t willing to go back to what existed beforehand, with the low wages and mistreatment, and a lot of those business owners haven’t made the cognitive leap yet that they can’t keep operating the way they did before. Of course, this is one reason why the CFIB is so up in arms about these benefits – they have a vested interest in things returning to the old normal where labour can be exploitative without consequence, but the current reality is changing that. This could be change happening that will be better for us all overall, if it’s able to take hold – and chances are, this government more than others are more willing to let it happen.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insistent that the federal government is “killing job creation,” which is a novel argument considering that they’re not the level of government responsible for the maintenance of public health measures (which has been one of the biggest determinants of economic activity over the course of the pandemic). They’re also keeping up the fiction that a pre-third wave job recovery projection was a “promise” about job creation, again, which was derailed by more public health measures because provinces screwed up their own recoveries by re-opening too soon. All of which is to say that we don’t seem to be capable of having a reasonable conversation about what is happening in the labour market, to the detriment of all of us.
TLDR: not many hard-working families who need help to make ends meet.
I think it’s a weird look for a political party to say “we want to bring back tax cuts but for a few families, mostly higher income ones”.
I also think it’s weird to try to fight the 2015 election again. pic.twitter.com/uJKXYS9Uif
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) August 6, 2021