Unemployment In Canada Essay Research Paper Unemployment

Unemployment In Canada Essay, Research Paper Unemployment is a term that nobody wants to come face to face with it. ?Statistics Canada defines the unemployed as those who are without jobs and who are actively looking for and available for work? (Macroeconomics: A Problem Solving Approach; 418). Many in our country suffer from unemployment and contrary to published statistics, the unemployment rate (the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labour force) is said to be much higher than the 12 per cent it is said to be. While both the unemployment rate and duration of unemployment has risen for all age groups, the severity of increases in the unemployment rate has been the strongest for the youth population aged 15-24. The strongest increases in unemployment

duration have been with older workers aged 45 and above. In the first case, it may be argued that younger workers are lacking either the demanded job skills, and/or the experience that employers are looking for in new workers. Alternatively, and possibly compounding this problem is the existence of the large baby boom of workers who have overwhelmed the capacity of employers for taking on significant numbers of new workers, even at the entry-level. In the second case, it can be argued that displaced older workers are finding that their skills, well established over a number of years with the same employer in the same industry, are not as marketable to other employers to the same degree, especially in other industries. The result is that while older workers as a group are less

susceptible to unemployment, for those that do become unemployed, the adjustment process to finding new employment is proving to be much more difficult and longer. The decline of routine production jobs in the goods producing sector and the growth of both high-end and low-end jobs (in terms of earnings) in services is impacting older workers the hardest. Moreover many are not as geographically mobile and have less educational attainment on average than younger workers. One type of unemployment is structural unemployment. ?Structural unemployment is unemployment that is caused by structural changes in demand patterns? (Macroeconomics: A Problem Solving Approach; 419). A mismatch between the skills required in the new workforce and the skills held by the workers causes unemployment

which rises at the peak of economic cycles. Ontario experiences such structural unemployment, and if our province experiences the expected economic expansion over the next few years, structural unemployment will continue to provide a challenge. Regardless of economic conditions, job seekers with appropriate skills are not available to meet the demand for workers in certain industries and for selected occupations. Often the shortage is for those with a strong platform of learning and employability skills, and specific occupational job skills with experience. It is generally recognized that the labour market and unemployment are no longer singly driven by economic cycles, but also by structural change. This structural component of unemployment, that which stems from a mismatch

between the skills of job seekers with the skills required for available job vacancies, has risen substantially over time. In general, workers in the past often remained in the same occupation and even job throughout their working lives. The explosion in information technology, globalization of economic activity and other structural forces are driving a dynamic transformation in employment, conditions of work, organization of work and how work is performed within occupational labels. This is requiring diverse and continually evolving skills for without which workers are less interchangeable, and adjustment is made often difficult. Unemployment has become as much a qualitative issue as quantitative, as skill requirements for many of the new and growing employment opportunities are