Jim Flaherty’s philosophy of employment

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 12:18 PM - 0 Comments

While deferring to Human Resources Minister Diane Finley for further details of what the government plans to accomplish with its unexplained budget bill amendments to employment insurance, Jim Flaherty hints at new expectations for the unemployed.

“There’ll be a broader definition and people will have to engage more in the work force,” said Mr. Flaherty, who then pointed to his own résumé from his student days at Toronto’s Osgoode Hall Law School. “I was brought up in a certain way. There is no bad job. The only bad job is not having a job. So I drove a taxi. You know, I refereed hockey. You do what you have to do to make a living.”

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney offered similar sentiments last month.

The federal government wants to reduce disincentives to work and create a “greater connection” between the EI program and the temporary foreign worker program, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told the National Post editorial board this week. ”If you don’t take available work, you don’t get EI,” he said. “That’s always been a legal principle of that program.”

Under the proposed reforms, unemployed Canadians who are receiving EI would be required to accept local jobs that are currently being filled by temporary foreign workers … ”Nova Scotia provincewide has 10 per cent unemployment, but the only way Christmas tree operators can function in the Annapolis Valley is to bring in Mexicans through this agricultural worker program,” Kenney told the National Post.

The budget bill includes a reference to “suitable employment,” but the definition of suitable has not yet been explained. More from the Star.

Tories set to redefine EI, ‘suitable work’

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 9:27 AM - 0 Comments

No job is a bad job, according to Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who made the comments Monday in the latest sign yet the Tories will soon expect Employment Insurance recipients to take whatever work is available, no matter the pay or their own qualifications.

Government leaders have hinted for months that an EI overhaul is on the way. But the details have remained murky. Speaking to reporters Monday, Flaherty fleshed out those plans somewhat, saying there will soon be a “broader definition” of what’s known as “suitable work”—in other words, the kinds jobs recipients are expected to apply for and take before qualifying for benefits. “I was brought up in a certain way,” Flaherty said, according to the Globe and Mail. “There is no bad job. The only bad job is not having a job. So I drove a taxi. You know, I refereed hockey. You do what you have to do to make a living.”

The quiet cuts

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 30, 2012 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

The Federal Tobacco Control Strategy is being cut, trade consulates will be closed, a coalition of organizations that deal with homelessness in Montreal won’t receive funding, neither will six groups studying women’s health, seafood inspection is being moved, regional development auditors are being eliminated, economists at Statistics Canada will have to compete for their jobs and StatsCan will start surveying less. David Pugliese wonders why Defence Research and Development Canada is being cut.

Kevin Page puts the short-term situation in perspective.

Ottawa’s ongoing planned restraint and 6.9 per cent cut in departmental spending will reduce its share of the economy from 7.3 per cent in 2010-11 to 5.5 per cent in 2016-17. That will have a direct impact on the economy, Page’s report stresses. It projects the spending restraints and cutbacks will reduce economic output by 0.3 per cent this year, climbing to 0.88 per cent in 2014.

Canada’s economy, subsequently, will grow by only 1.6 per cent in 2013, eight tenths of a point less than forecast by the Bank of Canada and the private sector consensus. On the jobs front, restraint will result in about 18,000 fewer jobs this year than had there been no restraint, climbing to 108,000 fewer jobs in 2015. Most of the losses are due to Ottawa’s actions — including a reduction of 43,000 stemming directly from March’s spending reductions — although provincial restraint is also a factor. Unemployment, currently at 7.2 per cent, will climb to 7.9 per cent in 2013, the report predicts.

Former members of Congress can’t find jobs in the real world

By Gabriela Perdomo - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 9:51 AM - 0 Comments

It turns out, all the hubris and posing that comes with a fancy post on Capitol Hill doesn’t really get you very far in the job market. Slate‘s Matthew Yglesias found that most members of Congress who were there between 2009 and 2011 and didn’t come back for another term are either working as lobbyists or are unemployed.

The Center for Responsive Politics, which oversees the database opensecrets.org, followed the 120 members of the 111th Congress who lost their seats in the 2011 mid-terms: 41 are out of a job, a fifth are lobbying a client, and a third are lobbying a firm.

Is now a good time?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 30, 2012 at 11:43 AM - 0 Comments

Stephen Gordon projects the sort of job cuts the public service might be facing.

Federal program spending accounted for 7.4 per cent of GDP in the fiscal year that preceded the spring 1995 austerity budget, and this share fell by 1.3 percentage points over the next two years. In 2011-12, federal program spending was projected to be 7.0 per cent of GDP, and was to fall by 0.8 percentage points by 2013-14. In other words, the cuts in program spending announced in last year’s budget were roughly 60 per cent as large as what we saw in the mid-1990s.

Federal public service employment fell by 29,000 in 1996, and by an additional 26,000 in the following three years. If the effects of the planned cuts are proportional to what was experienced in the 1990s, then the number of job lost would be on the order of 30,000.

Stephen also considers whether now is a good time for austerity. Not that this spring’s budget will have anything to do with austerity.

See also: Looking the wrong way

Sound familiar?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Barack Obama, last night. “My message is simple.  It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America.”

Jack Layton, last March.  “As prime minister, I wouldn’t use your hard earned tax dollars to reward companies that ship jobs to the States or overseas. I’ll target investment to create jobs right here at home.”

The end of the job

By Chris Sorensen - Friday, January 20, 2012 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Beau Lark/Corbis

It’s just a few cents more than a large specialty coffee from Starbucks, but it turns out that $5 is still enough money to make otherwise sane-looking people do some rather odd things. The website Fiverr.com, launched in 2010 on the heels of the recession that cost nearly seven million North Americans their jobs, is built around the concept of allowing people to buy and sell services for just $5. The advertised offerings range from useful (“I will professionally review your website or blog for $5”) to the frivolous (“I will sing Happy Birthday or congratulate someone in my bubble bath for $5).

Meanwhile, on the contract-job posting site Guru.com, there is a more serious offer for someone to create ESL lesson plans. On Freelancer.com, a new bridal services company is looking for someone to design its logo, while a dental clinic is seeking someone to produce a flyer to attract new customers—just two of more than 1.3 million current postings on the site.

The sites are all part of what may be one of the most dramatic shifts in the labour market of our time: the transition to a freelance economy where work is farmed out on a piecemeal, as-needed basis (often for relatively little money). The shift started out slowly in the 1990s as Silicon Valley companies discovered how to use the Internet to outsource dull computer-coding jobs, but has been picking up speed in recent years, particularly in the wake of the Great Recession, which left companies of all stripes battered and reluctant to hire new full-time employees. Microsoft, for example, used online testers in 2009 to find bugs in its software, while a year earlier Pfizer started allowing its employees to outsource bits and pieces of their jobs—making spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations—to freelance firms.

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Topp on jobs

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 2:47 PM - 0 Comments

Late last week, Brian Topp released his fourth policy paper, this one on jobs and small business.

I propose that new federal credit union legislation be enhanced to promote the establishment of new credit unions while respecting the integrity of the credit union governance structure.  Enhancements would  allow them to reach a larger client base while respecting the credit union difference…

I propose an enhanced and renewed federal labour-sponsored venture capital program, that learns from the success of the Quebec system and from the lessons of the Ontario experience. I propose  that permitted placements in federally-chartered labour-sponsored funds be increased to $15,000 from then current $5,000; that eligible investors be limited to sophisticated parties, who are investing on the advice of investment professionals; and that management fees and charges, diversification of investments, and eligible managers be much more carefully regulated and limited than was the case in Ontario…

I propose that Export Development Canada explicitly allocate at least 5% of its programming to small and medium sized business – and actively engage with small companies to encourage them to build their overseas sales.

Tough questions for job hunters

By Kristy Hutter - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 12:15 PM - 0 Comments

How would you cure world hunger? If you want to work at Amazon, you’d better come up with a creative answer. This curveball was just one of the 25 strangest interview questions asked by big employers in 2011, according to Glassdoor.com. The career website compiles a list at the end of each year, in an attempt to expose companies that ask oddball questions and prepare candidates for what they may be up against.

Some other examples include Deloitte’s “Would Mahatma Gandhi have made a good software engineer?” and from Hewlett-Packard: “If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?” Google is one of the most frequent offenders, appearing on the list since the site launched in 2008.

Glassdoor spokesman Scott Dobroski says employers want to analyze how a potential employee thinks critically. Take, for example, Best Buy’s “How many planes are flying over Kansas right now?” “You have to sound out the process by saying, ‘Well, it would depend on the time. I know that Chicago is a hub airport in the United States and that’s not too far. Dallas isn’t too far off, either. What time of year is it?’ ” says Dobroski. You might not get the right answer, but you could still land the job.

Well, there’s your problem

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 12:45 PM - 0 Comments

The fall report of the auditor general is here.

The concerns expressed there include defence procurement, tobacco farming compensation, drug safety, visa processing and assessing the results of the government’s economic stimulus.

Don’t do something

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 17 Comments

Stephen Gordon questions those calling for the government to take action on jobs.

My reading of the data of which I’m aware suggests that current rates of job creation are consistent with those observed during the last expansion, and have been so for a year or so. Calls for the government to “do something” are misplaced; the labour market has been functioning normally for quite some time now.

Econowatch: October 2011

By Colin Campbell - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

Mike Blake/Reuters

The TSX is down 20 per cent from its April high. It’s official, the bear market is back. The financial news is so bleak that even viral videos, which normally feature cute animals and footballs hitting groins, seem to have lost their sense of humour. Last week, one of the most talked-about Web videos was of a stock trader telling a BBC interviewer how the economic crisis is a cancer. “If you just wait and wait hoping it is going to go away, just like a cancer it is going to grow and it will be too late,” said Alessio Rastani, who argued that “the stock market is finished” and that people should hedge against an inevitable crash, like hedge funds are now doing.

Bloggers and business publications were quick to question Rastani’s bona fides. He’s self-employed, has modest holdings and is, in short, just an average guy. Which maybe explains why his message touched a nerve among average investors trying to make sense of the market chaos as their savings evaporate.

More importantly, it speaks to the extent that the economic crisis is one of confidence. Consumer confidence surveys show optimism has gone AWOL, even despite recent data showing there are silver linings. In the past months, companies have continued to go about their business—factories are humming in Canada and the service sector is growing. In the U.S., economists are predicting GDP will grow in the third quarter. Troubles still loom large. Employment is stalled and the eurozone is teetering. But tune out the markets for a moment, watch the likes of Rastani with all the seriousness you would a kitten slipping off a windowsill, and things aren’t so bad. Or at least, they could still be a lot worse.

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Studies say: having a job won’t make you happy

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 2 Comments

British Columbia: Researchers have determined that it’s harder for gay couples and single parents to get an apartment in Vancouver. Gay couples are 25 per cent more likely to be rejected by landlords than heterosexual couples, while single moms and dads are 15 per cent more likely to be rejected than married couples with children, according to a study by University of British Columbia sociologist Nathanael Lauster.

Alberta: University of Alberta researchers have found evidence that “brain wiring”—the development of paths in the brain caused by learning—continues well into young adulthood. New social experiences and post-secondary education were cited for continued brain development after the bursts of childhood and adolescence.

Ontario: It’s true: in spring, a young man’s (and woman’s) fancy turns to thoughts of love. A Queen’s University study has found teenagers are more likely than adults to conceive during the month of March. Citing spring break as the likely reason, co-author Mary Anne Jamieson suggests schools conduct sexual health blitzes before letting students loose for holiday frivolity.

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The Commons: Carry on

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 5:22 PM - 25 Comments

The Scene. The Speaker called on the leader of the opposition and Nycole Turmel stood in her spot, just to the left of the conspicuously vacant chair. The New Democrat caucus stood to cheer and the Conservatives across the way offered a round of applause. After Ms. Turmel had finished with her first question, the Prime Minister stood and congratulated her on having done so.

The congeniality ended there, or at least very soon thereafter. And let us be thankful for that.

For however the passing of Jack Layton is to influence our politics from here on—and in many ways for various reasons it would be good if it did—it should probably having nothing to do with reducing Question Period to a polite exchange of demure musings and rhetorical hugs. A Question Period without accusations that one or another is in league with terrorists or criminals might be nice. But a Question Period without vigorous disagreement, raised voices and scathing indictments would be a silly legacy for a man who so often revelled in such stuff.

Credit then to Mr. Harper, who, with his second response, opted to suggest aloud that Ms. Turmel hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. Here was the signal that it was okay to impugn again.

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Equality of opportunity

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 7 Comments

Jason Kenney comments on the skilled newcomer tax credit proposed by the Ontario Liberals.

“I think we should pursue equality of opportunity for all Canadians,” he said. “I don’t think it’s helpful for newcomers or anyone else to start dividing Canadians based on the longevity of their residency in Canada.”

Kenney said people have suggested a similar idea to him but he said he didn’t think it was fair. He said he didn’t think it was the solution to the province’s “very significant” unemployment problem.

Mr. Kenney’s government does have a Federal Internship for Newcomers program and has committed $22-million to the Bridge Training program for skilled immigrants, in partnership with the McGuinty government.

‘Flexible when necessary’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 12:44 PM - 5 Comments

The text of the Prime Minister’s remarks to the Conservative caucus this morning.

Colleagues, it’s good to see all of you. I know you’ve all been busy over the summer as have I.  Nous parlons avec les électeurs, les électrices au sujet de leurs priorités et de leurs préoccupations et avec tous les Canadiens au sujet de notre plan pour l’emploi et la croissance sans augmenter les taxes et les impôts.

Well, I hope you got some downtime with your families. I know we’ve all stayed focused on the economy. Canada continues to do well relative to most other advanced economies.

Depuis juillet 2009, l’économie canadienne a créé près de 600 000 nouveaux emplois. I have to say that again. Since July 2009, the Canadian economy has created nearly 600,000 net new jobs.

But, unfortunately, as we have been reminded this summer, the global economy remains very fragile. This is a fact to which I have made repeated reference and which has informed our decisions all along. And so as Parliament resumes this fall, our government will continue taking action to protect the financial security of hardworking Canadians and to help create jobs now and for the years to come.

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‘Highly discriminatory’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 26 Comments

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro imparts his feelings on the Ontario election campaign.

More than that, however, Mr. Del Mastro says it harkens back to the early 1990s when Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae was Ontario’s NDP premier. He brought in employment equity legislation to encourage the hiring of women and visible minorities. “My opportunities were severely restricted by legislation that was supposed to be creating equality,” Mr. Del Mastro said. “I was in my early 20s and thought how dare they create an entirely discriminatory policy that was going to affect my future.”

As a “young white male” at the time, Mr. Del Mastro said jobs were few and far between as a result. “And here we go again,” he said.

The issue in question—considered here by the Globe—is an Ontario Liberal proposal to create a tax credit for businesses that hire immigrants for jobs in professions such as “accounting, law, engineering and architecture.”

Take all the time you want . . .

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 1 Comment

Jamie Grill/Getty Images

For tired, overworked employees, it sounds like a dream come true: a job that offers the potential for unrestricted holidays. Forget the era of saving up precious vacation days. Instead, a growing number of companies now offer unlimited time off for their employees. But as the trend catches on, workplace psychologists warn unlimited vacations may not be the unbounded perk they seem.

Over the past few years, more and more companies have cast off the traditional rules surrounding paid leave. That’s partly because the lines between work and personal time have blurred, thanks to mobile computing and other technologies, making it harder for companies to keep track of exactly when and where someone is working. So rather than spell out rigid limits for holidays, the companies are allowing workers themselves to decide how much time to take off, on the condition that employees excel when they’re on the job and meet deadlines. The practice dates back to the 1990s, but gained fame in the last decade when Netflix adopted it. Since then, many smaller social networking companies, as well as law firms and consultancies in the U.S. and U.K., have followed suit, though so far Canadian companies have eschewed the perk.

No doubt workers who have already used up their vacation time and face another five long months before the end of the year are envious, but the unlimited vacation has its drawbacks, say experts. It’s supposed to boost employee morale, but there are concerns it could have the opposite effect. In a new legal paper written for the digital journal Bloomberg Law, Daniel McCoy and Dan Ko Obuhanych of the Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West warn that unrestricted time off can actually hurt employee spirits. “Some employees may believe that an unlimited vacation policy is akin to a ‘no vacation’ policy, particularly if the company has a workaholic culture where taking time off is discouraged,” they wrote. “Employees may feel a responsibility to limit the amount of vacation time taken, to fit in with their co-workers and the corporate culture.”

So a novel perk doesn’t always translate into reality. “It can be a good policy on paper, but you have to look at how it’s put into practice,” says Merv Gilbert, an organizational health psychologist in Vancouver. “There can be an implicit expectation that a company has this policy on paper, but it really doesn’t want you to use it.”

While most managers are no doubt wary of offering unrestricted time off out of fear that workers will disappear for months at a time, some experts believe that with open-ended vacations, many workers could end up taking even less time off than they otherwise would. When a company has a set vacation policy, an employee knows exactly how much time off his or her colleagues are permitted to take. In the absence of structured holidays, a race to the bottom may ensue as the realization sets in that the overachiever in the next cubicle hasn’t missed a day of work.

Those types of gnawing mind games are made worse when the job market is in the dumps, as it is in the U.S. All but the most self-assured workers may feel pressure to limit their holidays in order to keep their jobs. “In tough economic times there may be a belief that if I want to get ahead or stay with this company, I’d better not act on [the unlimited vacation offer],” says Gilbert.

Of course, that’s already a problem even when companies do have strict vacation rules. Research has shown that many employees already forego a chunk of their allotted time off. A study by Ipsos-Reid in 2008 determined that Canadian workers neglect to take the equivalent of 41 million vacation days a year that they’re owed. For these workers it’s the equivalent of giving $6.3 billion back to their employers, which is the amount lost in unclaimed paid holidays. Workaholics are the worst at taking time off, says Dr. Barbara Killinger, a psychologist specializing in work addiction. “[Workaholics] see themselves through others’ eyes, so if they are away for long, they worry people won’t see them as hard workers,” she says. In a company with no set rules for vacations, workaholics, who make up 30 to 35 per cent of the North American workforce, are more likely to succumb to their paranoia and may in fact take even less time off. Killinger says unlimited holidays may also be a way for companies to save money, since they would not have to pay out for unused vacation time.

Experts stop short of saying the unlimited vacation perk is an attempt at reverse psychology, but few bosses are likely to be upset if their underlings opt to put in more time at work as a result.

Good news, bad news: July 8 – July 14, 2011

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 18, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Citizens wave the flag of the newly formed Republic of South Sudan. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times/Polaris)

Tough love

The U.S. finally took a firm stand on Pakistan by suspending $800 million of the more than $2 billion in aid it offers the country each year. Pakistan has been, at best, an unreliable ally in the war on terror. It recently arrested a number of CIA informants who helped locate Osama bin Laden within its borders and cut visas for U.S. personnel operating near the Afghan border. Pakistan may not always see eye to eye with the U.S., but the fact is that American aid is what keeps its military and, lately, economy afloat. This warning shot should provide a crucial dose of reality.

Happy days, here again

A new quarterly Bank of Canada survey suggests a record 57 per cent of businesses “across all regions and sectors” will hire new employees over the next year (the highest level reported since 2005), while only four per cent expect to reduce staff. This coincides with a Statistics Canada report showing solid job growth for the third straight month, with a net gain of 28,000 jobs in June. That’s in sharp contrast to the U.S., where only 18,000 jobs were gained last month.

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My husband's job? Well, um…

By Rebecca Eckler - Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 23 Comments

Peter Cade/Iconica/Getty Images

“What is it I’m supposed to say you do again?” I ask my boyfriend as we head out to see friends. “Just say I own my own software company,” he says, which is true. But it’s a very specialized software company, focusing on registration for the “conference and trade show industry.” I’m still not sure what that means, though I have rehearsed my lines.

I’m not the only one who has a hard time explaining or understanding what my partner does. When I posted on Facebook recently that he was headed off to do his “something-something” job in Washington, numerous women replied, admitting to being in the same clueless boat I was. “I can’t even remember the current title of my hubby. So don’t worry about it,” wrote one. Another replied, “I had a guy like that once. I tried to explain to people what he did but in the end gave up and boiled it down to, ‘He goes to an office tower in a suit and comes home with money.’ ” Still another suggested I just “say he’s in business.” This woman added, “Gone are the days when everyone had one job responsibility or title.” I’ll say.

“Not knowing, understanding, or being able to say what your husband does is very this-generation,” says Sari Friedman, an HR consultant and career coach. “The landscape has changed so much. Roles are more specific these days and more complicated to explain.”

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The French are coming

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Mathieu Lam was 23 when he decided to leave his home country of France in 2005 to work and travel in Canada. He was interested in the country’s reputation for natural beauty and its relatively high standard of living. Plus, he felt his prospects for employment at home were dismal.

Now, six years later, Lam is a permanent Canadian resident who runs a software development company in Toronto. He also operates a website called Programme Vacances Travail, which helps French youth who, like him, want to live and work abroad. “Canada has always been a country that attracted me,” he says in French, describing why he chose to come to Canada.

Lam’s not alone. Over the past decade, the number of French people coming to Canada has risen significantly. Permanent residents admitted from France jumped from 4,345 in 2000 to 6,930 in 2010. The increase in temporary workers is even more dramatic. In 2000, 5,932 temporary foreign workers entered Canada from France. By 2010, that number had risen to more than 17,000.

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Bureaucracy now!

By Josh Dehaas - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 11:36 AM - 2 Comments

Photograph By Andrew Tolson

It can be lonely for recruiters manning the booths for big banks or retailers at Ryerson University’s student job fairs. “The government agencies get a lot more attention,” says Ian Ingles, the organizer of the Toronto events.

That’s no surprise, considering the statistics. In a recent survey for Studentawards.com, 30 per cent of university students picked the government of Canada as their employer of choice. Then came Health Canada. Provincial governments did well too, beating out all of the banks and the video game developers. Even the trendiest private sector companies, Apple and Google, couldn’t beat the federal agencies.The results echo another recent survey of nearly 10,000 Canadian students by research firm Universum. In it, arts graduates, for example, gave the government of Canada, the provincial governments and Health Canada gold, silver and bronze respectively.

The recession explains some of the zeal for the civil service. During the rough days of 2009, students got the message that private companies were shedding employees while government workers were relatively unaffected: there was a record-setting 4,000 applications for 106 Ontario government internships in early 2009.

But how to explain the post-recession jump in applications for the same internship program? Last March, even with many private sector employers hiring graduates again, applications to the annual program grew by more than 20 per cent to just over 5,000 for 76 spots.

Demographics—and the altruistic goals of new graduates—best explain the march toward public service, says Sandra Botha, a campus recruiter for the government of British Columbia. Modern immigrants to Canada are proud to work for the government, she says. “Many students perceive a government job as having a lot of prestige, because it did in their parents’ country of origin,” she explains. “We have many more Chinese-Canadians applying in B.C., and if you come from China, working for the government is considered the job.”

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A job-creating election

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 3:40 PM - 12 Comments

Eric Beauchesne surveys the economic ramifications of an election.

In fact, Statistics Canada’s analysis of changes in employment in the wake of the October 2008 election campaign, suggests an election would create thousands of temporary jobs. ”With the federal election in mid-October, there were large employment gains in public administration, spread across most provinces,” Statistics Canada said in its analysis of what was a 40,000 increase in full-time employment in October 2008. ”Most of the increase was among occupations related to the election process,” it added, noting there were no job gains in other areas to explain the surge in employment that month.

Get me a job—or give me my money back

By Kate Lunau - Monday, February 28, 2011 at 9:54 AM - 51 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

Carlie Deneiko is from the tiny town of Watrous, Sask. (population 1,800), more than an hour’s drive southeast of Saskatoon. As a teen, she dreamed of travelling the world, but her priorities are shifting. “I’ve got a boyfriend, and I’m really settled,” says Deneiko, 20, a student in the faculty of education at the University of Regina. “It’s becoming more important to me to get a job.”

Deneiko’s not too worried: her education comes with a job guarantee. She’s one of 355 students enrolled in a new program at the University of Regina that promises students they’ll land a job—in their chosen field—within six months of graduation. If they don’t, the university gives them another year of tuition for free. The UR Guarantee has other bells and whistles (like internships and work programs), but for Deneiko, it’s that extra year of free tuition that pulled her in. “If I don’t get a job, I’m coming back to get my special education certificate,” she says.

Since it launched in September, the UR Guarantee has been incredibly popular. Enrolment in the program, which is open to all first-year students, has already jumped by 24 per cent, says president Vianne Timmons. “We looked at students’ motivation for attending university,” she says, “and realized they’re looking at a degree primarily as a launching pad for a career.”

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