A few words were left out from the headline on the article Employers feel the heat from red-hot job market. My suggested revision: Employers feel the heat from red-hot minimum wage/poorly paid job market. And really, wasn’t it rather ironic to choose an employer who owns nine fast-food franchises as the focal interviewee to speak to the issue about a lack of workers in Victoria who are willing to work for the low hourly wages such employers are willing to pay?
I know it’s not easy to run a business and owners have expenses, but seriously most of this article focuses on the supposed surplus of minimum wage and low end jobs available in a city where the benchmark value for a single family home in the Victoria Core in May 2018 was $878,100 and a condo was $493,900 (Victoria Real Estate Board’s home price index for June). Benchmark values are based on benchmark homes, a notional home that includes the most common attributes of typical homes in a given area.
And please, to everyone who blathers on about the economy in terms of a minimum wage, just stop. We could be so much further ahead as a society if we imposed a maximum, rather than a minimum wage. “Sorry Sir/Madam Executive. The salary for this position is capped at not more than a million per year. If you don’t like it, there are plenty of others who would happily accept this.” We all know what solves issues like “affordable child care” and ” affordable education”: It’s paying people salaries that enable them to afford these things.
The article also refers to turning to increasing immigration to fill these purported vacancies. Might I suggest employers consider searching for future staff by reviewing the many resumes on Monster or Indeed, before proposing such abstract solutions? Canada has many educated capable people looking for work in areas in which they’re educated and/or have experience in. A simple Google search for “unemployed/underemployed post-secondary graduates” reveals this.
This was a comical, micro-focused article about a mythical red hot job market. If you want readers to buy into the idea that Victoria truly has a red-hot job market, add some stats to support your position, such as the vacant jobs that require post-secondary education and the salaries attached to those, then show how the after-tax wages from such positions affect a Victorian’s purchasing power: Salary vs Cost of Living. The issue really isn’t having or not having a job; it’s having a job that pays you well enough so you can afford life.
Katherine Williams
Saanich
