Chapter 5

http://canadianlabour.ca/stunning-job-losses-mean-ei-must-be-improved


Summary

In the first month of 2009, 129 000 jobs were lost were lost in Canada. That makes 230,000 jobs lost in the past three month and puts our unemployment rate at 7.2%. It is back to the same unemployment rate back in 2004. 114,000 of the jobs that were lost in January were full time, and 15,100 were part time, with loss occurring in both private and public sectors. The significant lost in January was due to decreased demand for manufacturing caused by the current recession. This is an especially difficult time to be laid off because the government has changed their EI (Employment Insurance) rules and making it much more difficult for one to qualify and cutting the benefits for those that do qualify. Canada now has 1,310,100 unemployed with another 100,000 added to that sum from January alone.

Connections
In this Chapter, we have learned the different types of unemployment that can be caused at different times. In our current state of economy, the type of unemployment shown is the Demand- Deficient Unemployment. The recession has caused a low demand in the products and services that consumers want therefore less labor are needed to produce the lower amounts of goods. Companies are not looking into hiring more workers and are starting to cut jobs to meet the declining profit. The other thing mentioned in the chapter is Employment Insurance. It is a program that provides monetary benefits to a person who becomes unemployed. It is compulsory and is taken out of ones every pay cheque. The benefits received are based on how much contribution one has made on the job. The current problem with EI is that with so many people getting laid off, not enough money is being put in to pay off all the EI. The government then has to put in tax money to make up the deficit. But with the economy in such bad condition, it is not likely many of those unemployed are going to get their job back anytime soon. So the government has tightened the rules and making it much more difficult for those unemployed to get a helping hand.

Conclusion
The economy is still in shambles and getting worse as more and more people are losing jobs. Each day, tens of thousands of people are getting laid off which is exactly the opposite thing we need happening in a time like this. In a time like this, we especially need to be creating more jobs to help repair the shaking economy. We also see just how big of a problem unemployment is for a country. If one becomes unemployed, his or her income is reduced or ceased which makes it harder for them to support themselves or the family they have. They then would need to rely on government help such as welfare to support their needs. If this type of unemployment continues, the whole social system of the country can collapse and the results are catastrophic.