Socialist Party of Canada - Wallace's Corner

Wallace's Corner

A socialist perspective on today's events

What They Don't Tell Us about Canada's "Economic Recovery"

15 June 1999

Karl Marx often decried the "vulgar economics" of the theoretical apologists for capitalism.

A new study released by Mike Burke and John Shields, professors in the Department of Politics and School of Public Administration at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto takes a hard look at the so-called economic recovery much touted in the circles of those claiming capitalism works to the advantage of all. It reveals the lie promoted by successive governments and the federal and provincial levels about the "wonderful" levels of job growth in Canada.

The study is entitled, "The Job-Poor Recovery: Social Cohesion and the Canadian Labour Market".

Contrary to the rah-rah enthusiasts beating the capitalist market drum as signalling an end to working class woes, the study finds that in the latest capitalist phase a larger and growing segment of the labour force faces growing insufficiencies in employment security and earnings.

The authors state:

Reports of the GNP/GDP, the number of jobs created, and traditional unemployment measures, for instance, give us a very incomplete picture of economic health in a global economy in which levels of labour market polarization are rapidly expanding. Yet governments continue to defended their economic records largely on the basis of job creation figures without taking into account the quality of employment generated.

Globalization, technological change and public policy changes have restructured employment patterns. No longer are jobs full-time. The much touted possibilities of "rising living standards" under an expansive capitalism are falling to the wayside.

The report indicates that:

real labour market exclusion is nearly two and one-half times higher than the official unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent. More than 3.2 million Canadians were unemployed or faced various states of underemployment;

53 percent of the adult workforce or 6.7 million individuals are in vulnerable employment situations because they lack employment stability and/or market income sufficiency;

over 52 percent of Canadian workers earn less than $15 per hour;

more than 37 percent of working single mothers earn less than $10 per hour (an annual salary of only $18,200 based on a yearly 35 hour work week) compared to 26 per cent for all employees;

3.2 million Canadians (about one-fifth of the labour force) are structurally excluded form the labour market in that they are either unemployed or significantly "underemployed";

45 percent of adult employees between the ages of 25-59 are employed in flexible forms of work (less than full-time tenured workers);

flexible forms of employment (part-time, contract, full-time non-tenured) are on average between $5 to $8 per hour more poorly compensated than full-time workers with tenure;

37.1 percent of the adult workforce, or more than 3.5 million employees, were flexible workers in May 1998. There is a wide difference in median hourly wages between stable and flexible work $17.44 an hour for stable full-time workers with tenure versus $12.73 for flexible workers, a $4.71 difference.

This problem of instability of this "jobless" job recovery is added to with the breakdown of the Keynesian "welfare state". Wishing to maintain growth, stopping the falling rate of profit, so-called "safety net" social spending has been cut drastically.

Workers can end this - the selling of our ability to labour physically and mentally to create the profits for a few.

It is time to abolish the system that forever leaves us insecure, mere pawns at the whims of capitalist market buying and selling, of boom and bust.

While production may grow in Canada and worldwide, the results of the study confirm what socialists have said - that even the capitalist boom is a complete bust to the working class.

A free, "nearly" final, version of the report is available on the Ryerson web site.