It is 1am on a summer Saturday night, the wind is gently blowing through your hair and your favorite song is playing on the radio. The stress of your daily, white-collar routine is left behind for just one night – a single evening out with your friends to catch up on the chaos of your lives. You cannot help but enjoy this rare crack in your hectic, nine-to-five schedule; a fleeting moment when everything feels right and you feel free. In the distance, you notice flashing lights. Thinking little of what they could mean, you continue your journey. Suddenly, you come face-to-face with one of the most despised enemies of urban life: traffic. As you slow to a grinding halt, you cannot help but feel irritation, anger and helplessness. It is ruined. Your one night is completely ruined. As you take your place in the endless parking lot that was once a four-lane highway, you realize that the source stoppage is a massive construction project. You look and hear them pound at the pavement with their jackhammers. Trying to control your frustration, you take a deep breath, exhale, and turn your head away. Again, you feel the victim of this deepening social crisis: the shortage of skilled workers.
You may have heard the topic raised on some morning show or another, but likely thought little of it. However, the figures are quite shocking. According to one author's research, '52 percent of skilled trades are expected to retire within the next 15 years, with 41 per cent of respondents indicating they will face a skills shortage in their industry within five years.'; (Arnold, par. 12).
The shortage of skilled workers in the coming decade poses a serious threat to all aspects of the Canadian economy. Like all others, our economy is comprised of three major elements: primary products, secondary goods and services. My research indicates that primary products constitute just over 7% of Canada's GDP, secondary goods account for 21%, and the services comprise 72%. This distribution although heavily in favor of the service industry still shows the importance of the secondary/manufacturing industry in Canada's modern day economy. Taking into fact that since the late nineteenth century, Canada's centre of manufacturing is focused in two provinces, Ontario and Quebec. Consistently, year after year, Ontario contributes about 50% of the Canadian total of manufactured goods produced, measured by value, and Quebec 25%.
Before the war, Canada’s most important sector in its economy was agriculture. However, this was changing drastically after and during the war as industry began to take over as being more important. Canadian production of war material, food supplies, and raw materials had been crucial during the war. After the war, it was only natural that big investments were being made in mining, production, transportation, and services industries. Canadian cities were becoming very important contributors to the economy. This was also bringing in waves of post-war immigration, the backbone of Canada’s multicultural society we know today.
Despite the development of new machineries, the demand for worker remained relatively high due to the growing numbers of cities. By ...
In many ways, the automotive industry has huge impacts on Canada. The impact it has creates jobs, and services. It also boosts economy and contributes to its success. Over the last two decades, the automotive industry has been a leading contributor to Canada’s economy and is a primary factor as to whether or not the economy will be successful. There are many contributing branches of the sector that allow it to be successful. This is shown through the production and manufacturing of vehicles, as well as the sale of the vehicles. The automotive industry has had a significant impact on Canada’s economy over the last 10 years. If the production and sale of domestic vehicles were to decline, Canada’s economy to be severely crippled and fall back into a recession.
...nguage, and religion all make up Canada’s human face, but also front how the cultural accommodation will continue with the risk of losing Canada’s main traditions. Faultlines again come into perspective within demographic issues, especially with newcomers/old-timers, aboriginal population expansions, and French/English language. The core/periphery model is also represented. The end of the chapter places a focus on Canada’s economic face as well, dealing with stresses inside the global economy as well as its strong dependency on the U.S markets (Bone, 169) especially with the stimulating global recession. Canada’s economic structure leans on the relative share of activity in the primary (natural resource extraction), secondary (raw material assembly), tertiary (sale/exchange of goods and services), and quaternary (decision-making) sectors of the economy (Bone, 166).
Precarious employment is work that is not secure, generally does not include any type of benefits, and is paid so lowly that it generally does not meet the living wage. This type of employment is unfortunately a growing trend in today’s societies due to many factors such as outsourcing, globalization, a saturated job market, shifts from manufacturing to the service sector and jobs also being replaced by computerized units. When speaking on precariousness these trends also affect European societies due to the fact that the outsourcing is generally to places where labour is extremely cheap in order to lower the costs of goods such as Asia and South America. This growing trend is also resulting in negative effects on the economy such as the bottoming out of the middle class and a large amount of citizens living below the poverty line and not able to earn a livable wage. Minimum Wage is on the incline, however, it is still not enough to live on practically and there are many other factors that make precarious work disadvantageous other than the wages such as job security and room for growth and promotion within the company. The negative changes to the job market brought on by the changes to it have resulted in higher expectations and demands from the employers which reduce the amount of people which are eligible for what are now known as “good jobs”. These good jobs generally entail a livable wage, benefits, more flexibility and better job security. Precarious work is categorized and gendered as women and immigrants make up the vast majority of employees in this type of work. Since precarious work affects citizens on a global scale, in this essay, there will be comparisons and contrasts drawn between precarious work in Canada ...
Immigration provides very constant growth in the labor force, which is helping the Canadian labor market. With the amount of immigrants coming into Canada, there is an increase of jobs being taken in the Canadian labor force. They make up to 70% of labor force and most likely will increase higher percent in the future. The immigrants who have provided their needs for the Canadian labor market for growth and its success take up a great portion of the Canadian labor force population. The immigrants who have come into Canada are skilled workers, (entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, etc) or are unskilled workers (farmers, plumbers, electricians, laborers, etc.).
People outside of Canada are baffled at how Canada ended up in such a state of affairs. Canada as a country has a lot going for it. A high GNP, and high per capita income in international terms. It is ranked at the top of the...
Businesses need workers in order to function, but occasionally the salary employees receive can be a problem. Canadians constantly want a higher pay, but the company or manager supposes the opposite. That is where the role of new immigrants comes into place. New immigrants look for a job when they first arrive, which means that they will accept the first job they acquire. The jobs that citizens do not wish for can be occupied by them. Another problem with the workforce is Canadians not wanting to accept job positions because of being forced to move elsewhere. Newcomers have no trouble with moving for a job because wherever there is work that is their new home. More peopl...
France engages in quite a few secondary economic activities such as manufacturing, machinery and transport equipment production, aircraft production, and pharmaceutical items. This part of the economy makes up about 26% of France’s gross domestic product and 25% of its labor force (“CIA 2001”, 1). Manufacturing plays the largest role out of all of the secondary economic activities with a contribution of 16% to the gross domestic product. Behind it are the construction and energy generation companies which account for 4% and 3% of the gross domestic product (“Economic Structure”, 1).
Canada and the United States are the largest trade partners in the world. It is the result of the geographical position of two countries and the free trade between two countries. It should be a great thing for the economies of both countries, but since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, American businesses almost took over the Canadian economy. When the American companies started to make more business in Canada, it brought more jobs and money to the country in the short-term. But as a long-term effect Canadians became even more depended on the U.S. as the American companies started dominating Canadian companies in Canada. Also, today Canadian manufacturers have little protection from the government when ch...
Over the past few decades, factors such as globalization, de-regulation, credentialism, and technological progress have brought momentous transformations to the economies of the world. Wealth imbalance between countries has contracted, while income inequality within countries has expanded. The demand for highly skilled workers has increased, and so have the salaries for the most successful individuals in society. Less educated people, however, have fared relatively worse. This is quickly attracting the attention of governments of many countries, including Canada.
In the current economy, there is no surprise for anxiety over whether employees will lose their jobs or not. Due to an increase of research and use for automation and machine learning, more and more workers are starting to antagonize new technology. In the research paper ‘Where have all the jobs gone?’ by well-known journalist Daniel Akst, the automation anxiety is not completely false, but it only focuses on one side; “Unemployment has been concentrating among those with little education or skill, while employment has been rising most rapidly in occupations generally considered to be the most skilled and require the most amount of education” (Akst). The rise of automation will mean a depletion of lower skilled jobs, which will cause an increase in education requirements to encourage more people to take up college and further education due to the introduction of more computer based jobs. Automation in the manufacturing business will have a positive effect; products can come out efficiently, quickly, accurately, and with lower costs. The higher amount of products coming out, the more demand and consumers are required. The wages will
I went to work right out of High School, making an hourly rate of $11.00 with full medical benefits, 401 K, and bonuses. Unfortunately, a good percentage of these companies have now relocated out of the country where the labor is cheaper or have gone bankrupt altogether. A variety of these jobs have now been replaced by robots or machines. For instance, at restaurants you order on a computer screen and a device is left on the table so you can run your credit card to pay the bill. Kevin Kelly’s essay, Better than Human, makes a rather shocking claim that, “before the end of this century, 70 percent of today’s occupations will likewise be replaced by automation,” (They say / I say: the moves that matter in academic writing, 2014, pp. 299-312). Receiving an Associate or Bachelor’s degree that specializes in a particular field seems to be the only way to ensure ones financial future in this economy. Occupation’s that can easily be replaced by robots or machines, will be, especially if it is more cost effective and efficient. Companies that can pay a lower wage in another country will move to save money and workers will be unemployed. Occupations such as teachers, police man, nurses, lawyers and doctors to name a few require degrees, but these are not going to be outsourced or ran by machines. People have all their
A 2014 Oxford study found that the number of U.S. workers shifting into new industries has been strikingly small: In 2010, only 0.5 percent of the labor force was employed in industries that did not exist in 2000. The discussion about humans, machines and work tends to be a discussion about some undetermined point in the far future. But it is time to face reality. The future is now. (UPI Top
Back in the late 20th century United Kingdom faced the most rapid higher education growth which supplied a high number of skilled workers for the national labour market. Unfortunately, growing number of graduates made the economy suffer from the overqualified workforce. This abnormality caused the over-education of labour market since bigger number of population currently holds the graduate degree if compared to those who have high school degree (Coughlan, 2014). McGuinness (2006) described over-education as “the extent to which an individual possesses a level of education in excess of that which is required for their particular job”. However, Mertens (2003) analysed various analysis and supported the statement that over-education should be treated as short term phenomenon which is likely to restore in time. Likewise, Caroleo and Pastore (2013) added that this restoration is only likely if certain persistent and derogative problems do not occur. In other words, it means that over-education is short term phenomenon only when overeducated person keeps refining his/hers