To the Editor,
Re: No shortage of workers for Nanaimo businesses, Jan. 3.
The article quotes an unemployment rate of just under six per cent in the city, but does not consider people’s ability to live in what is becoming a part-time labour market.
So what happened to the full-time job? The Huffington Post reports an even bleaker outlook than the government’s job creation statistics released last month: “over the past year, 90 per cent of the net jobs created in Canada were part-time positions. And …job quality for youth, along with pay, has been on the decline for decades.”
That suave six-per cent figure makes no distinction between part-time and full-time work. It also doesn’t cover those whose EI has run out and have fallen on income assistance, or onto nothing at all. It does not recognize people who haven’t worked enough hours to be statistically relevant; nor does it recognize the significant loss of revenue to government of part-time tax dollars compared to full-time. And what becomes of our medical plan, programs to aid the poor, schools and universities? All need money to exist, let alone function.
Jean Chrétien once declared that Canadians had an economic culture, whatever that means. Does Canada now have a part-time culture?
Perhaps it is time to move beyond the shock and incredulity of Donald Trump’s victory, recognize the situation as grim and work to change it. Failure to arrest this trend will only give credibility to a Canadian version of You-Know-Who.
Michael DanceNanaimo
