I do not think Canada will ever achieve a 3% unemployment rate. I strongly believe that we are near the level that reflects the skill and ability of our labor pool. We are in such a human resource deficit that we are employing the unemployable.
This belief is thanks to long decades of lobbying by business to have the natural rate of unemployment recognized to be around 7.5%. People point out the poor service at their retail stores and other points of employee contact and decry that we have nothing but a nation of morons working. Well, it's my own experience that employees are only as good as their employer.
Going back to the fish processing plant, we needed to find nine processing employees to work at a starting rate of $14 per hour plus benefits for the pilot project plant. In 4.5% unemployment Edmonton. Good candidates? You bet. Now, these are low-skilled jobs that have no "lead in" with respect to specific skills. It's about training and management. However, there are plenty of good people willing to work and it's simply a matter of harnessing that energy. I worked with a building supplies firm a few years ago that didn't get it. They paid the least amount possible, had poor training and skill maintenance programs, and management based on animosity. They had terrible employees and blamed everyone else. They talked about "bad schools" and everything under the sun, thinking that people should turn themselves into outstanding employees regardless of management.
There was a time in Canada when a government would face impeachment if the unemployment rate were allowed to creep close to 6%. Ask Diefenbaker about it. He was almost lynched. Well, here's where we use the "we're not in Kansas anymore" type of argument that it's not the 1960's and we can't go back. huh? What economic principle is that based on? We've had forty years to make things better, but somehow "progress" is MORE unemployment? Wassup with that? The US managed to reach 5% and their overall education level is not as good as ours.
I had an interesting debate with a local right wing newspaper publisher. She was crying about the "Brain Drain" and how hordes of our super-bright people were being siphoned of to the US. Better money, better conditions, and lower taxes were stealing our population. Previous to this exchange, she was talking about adult literacy and how our 18-49 crowd were nothing more than non-reading dolts that couldn't buy a can of soup at the grocery store.
Well, if that is true, why were the Americans stealing them? Her entire arguments were based on surface level statistics that are the tool of the neo-cons in creating headlines to convince us that we need a large labour pool to keep wages low. Low wages means low inflation, which is the RIGHT way. Low inflation of course is designed to protect asset holding people and unless exceeds 5-7% has no effect on typical Canadians.
I agree that we are too quick to compare ourselves to the US, and to the rest of the world. If we like our country, than what's wrong with that? We have a strong health care system, terrific education system (we like to run it down, but the rest of the planet uses it as a benchmark) and very high standard of living.
Taxes! The Yanks have low taxes. Well, in a micro-micro example, my cousin worked in California for a few years. Now, he owned a small company there and he found that the income taxes were very low, but since he wasn't working for a big firm, it cost him $1600 a month for comprehensive health care coverage. He moved to Texas, and while income taxes were very very low, he was paying $8000 a year for property taxes.
In Alberta, we love to talk about our low taxes. But, we have the highest utility rates for power in the nation, high user fees for most services, and health care premiums. Hhhhm.
In the "West" we have exploited the world to create a very high standard of living for ourselves. It is at the expense of others. Now, many 2nd and 3rd world nations are on the cusp of becoming consumers of good and services not unlike our own. This means huge demands on energy resources and raw materials. Anyone follow the price of steel? It's tripled in the last few years thanks to demand outside of North America. We've been sitting on our thumbs, not preparing for this future. GW Bush's plan is to simply build a fence around precious resources with soldiers. Is this realistic? Is there a way that we can better utilize the resources so that the majority of the world's population can live decently without wrecking the planet? We've used our technilogical ability to put people and stuff in space, to create the internet and cell phones that take pictures and send them to others. But, we consume energy at a rate that exceeds any time in history. We horde GDP and use it to control the world's energy resources instead of finding ways to share it and make it last a long time.
Pogo said it, "we have seen the enemy, and it is us."
