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A Dozen Myths about Jobs
What are the best ways to save or create good jobs in a place like BC? A lot of what we hear is bunk. First of two.
Power trowel operator, Vancouver. Photo courtesy of kwazy from Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.
-
How to Create Green Jobs in BC's Forests
Sure, China's a hot market for our raw logs. But the world wants wood products we could make.
-
'Creating Jobs' Is Biggest HST Con Job Yet
There's scant evidence the $2 billion tax shift onto families will create more pay cheques.
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BC Banking Jobs Declined after Bank Tax Was Killed
Libs forfeiting over $100 million in tax revenue didn't stop drain of 1,600 big bank positions.
Myth 1: Education doesn't pay.
"There are all these stories about people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg who are college dropouts," says Thomas Lemieux, a professor of economics at UBC. Or there's the "famous one about PhDs driving taxis."
As the price tag on a post-secondary degree continues to tick upward, the idea that education is no longer a significant investment in one's economic future sounds more and more believable. Just last week, The Tyee ran a story mulling over this very question.
But according to Lemieux, that just isn't the case.
"If you're looking for one thing to predict that someone will do better in the labour market," says Lemieux, "it's pretty hard to find a better indicator than education."
Looking at the average difference in annual income between those with various levels of education, Lemieux, along with UBC colleague W. Craig Riddell and University of Montreal researcher Brahim Boudarbat, found that the average holder of a bachelor's degree can now expect to make 32 per cent more than someone of similar work experience who holds a high school diploma. That's compared to a difference of 25 per cent in 1980.
In other words, the premium on education not only persists, but has increased over the last two and half decades. The same was true of high levels of education and vocational training as well.
"There are many more things to higher education than the monetary pay-off," says Lemieux, "But of the policies that a country can introduce to help people to compete and to have good jobs in a globalized workplace, the list is short. Education is one of the leaders."
Myth 2: Oil and gas is a big BC employer.
Petrochemical extraction is a dirty business. Responsible for just under a third of greenhouse gas emissions from the entire province, one might be tempted to assume, if for no other reason than a sense of proportion, that for as much as it emits, the industry is a big employer too.
But according to Marc Lee from the CCPA, the myth of B.C.'s big oil and gas workforce is just that: a myth. And it's a myth with consequences.
"A lot of the decisions around oil and gas are justified because it's said that they create jobs," says Lee. "But it's a false promise, by and large, and it's one that doesn't include the full pallet of impact across society."
So exactly how many jobs can we thank the fossil fuel industry for?
The base number of workers employed directly by oil and gas companies is about 2,800, according to figures found at BC Stats.
Counting all those employed in various support activities -- the surveyors, the electrical engineers, and the many other contractors who hold jobs auxiliary to exploration and extraction but who work for independent companies -- requires a little guess work. The only relevant figures available lump the oil and gas support workers together with their counterparts in mining. There are many more B.C. mining jobs to be found than those in petrochemical extraction -- about five times as many. Assuming that roughly the same proportion applies to the number of support workers in either industry, one can reasonably assume that about 2,000 people work in support of the oil and gas industry.
Trickier yet is the task of estimating how many jobs exist as an indirect result of petrochemical extraction in B.C. When the nearly 5,000 workers already accounted for buy groceries, gas, clothing, for example, some grocery stores, gas stations, and department stores will hire more workers than they otherwise might have. How many more? According to Marc Lee, assuming a one-for-one relationship between direct and indirect jobs (that is, between oil workers and the waiters hired to serve them breakfast) provides a "generous estimate of the employment impact of the industry."
Adding 2,800 to 2,000 to 4,800, we come to 9,600 jobs directly and indirectly attributable to the oil and gas industry.
To put that number in context, 10,000 jobs is less than half a per cent of all of the jobs in British Columbia.
While those nearly 10,000 employees, and the many families who depend upon their livelihood, are by no means disposable, according to Lee, a gradual transition away from that industry would not have to come at the expense of B.C. workers overall.
"If we went a different route -- for example, by retrofitting buildings for efficiency, renewable energy, investing in public transit," says Lee, "we would actually create way more jobs per dollar of investment than oil and gas."
Myth 3: Tax carbon, kill jobs.
The carbon tax has had to weather some choppy political seas since it was introduced in 2008. Slammed from the right as an onerous burden on business, then slammed from the left as a regressive shift in the tax code, it seems that both sides of the political spectrum can agree that the carbon tax is bad for business, bad for workers and bad for jobs.
According to a 2007 study conducted for the European Commission Taxation and Customs Union comparing carbon-reduction tax regimes in Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, and the U.K., taxes on carbon emissions can actually have the opposite effect on employment.
While higher energy costs can be a constraint on businesses and consumers alike, the study showed that businesses were surprisingly flexible in their ability to reduce emissions and improve efficiency. To the extent that some of these reduction efforts involved new investment, it's plausible that not only can carbon taxes reduce emissions without harming job growth, they may even stimulate the economy.
“You can't assess the impact that a carbon tax is going to have on the economy just based on the carbon tax itself," says Matt Horne, director of the B.C. Energy Solutions program at the Pembina Institute. "It's going to depend on what you do with the money."
The revenue collected through a tax on carbon can be used in a number of ways. Whether the government chooses to spend the windfall on infrastructure, offer rebates on investment or research, or, as is the case of B.C.'s tax regime, cancel the tax out with cuts to personal and corporate income, will ultimately determine the overall impact of the tax on jobs.
The carbon tax, in other words, determines the costs and cost-bearers within in a environmental tax regime. How the government spends that money determines the beneficiaries.
Looking at the current economic climate, Stewart Elgie of the University of Ottawa and Stephanie Cairs from Sustainable Prospect make the case for robust spending in the areas of low carbon infrastructure and research and development of clean technologies. With the government investment creating jobs in the short-term, such spending, they say, could help ease the transition away from a carbon-intensive economy, while priming private investment in the nascent green technology sector.
"The U.S., for example, is devoting 12 per cent of its stimulus package, or $94 billion over ten years, to energy efficiency, renewable power, and other green investments -- far more than Canada on a per capital basis," write Elgie and Cairs. "To compete, Canada needs to provide similar levels of support."
Myth 4: We're doing well at eliminating gender-based discrimination in the workplace.
A decade into the 21st century, the fact that a significant wage gap between men and women still exists might seem hard to believe.
And sure enough, some people work extra hard not to believe it.
Take the 2010 article from Penelope Trunk, "A Salary Gap Between Men and Women? Oh, Please." If summary is even necessary, Trunk dismisses the idea that men and women receive different salaries for any reason other than the latter's choice to stay home and get pregnant.
"There is no longer a salary gap between men and women" Trunk assures the reader. "This is not a controversial statement."
As it happens, the statement is not only completely controversial, but also completely wrong.
According to a report published last spring by Marie Drolet of Statistics Canada, in 1992, the average Canadian woman with a full time job took home about 72 cents in annual pay for every dollar earned by a male with the same job, education, and work experience. Looking at the same metric over a decade and a half later, in 2008, how many cents to the dollar does the average Canadian woman with a full time job take home?
About 72 cents.
Adjusting for the fact that women, on average, work fewer hours than men (an other issue entirely) the figures look better. But not much better.
Earning 83 cents for every one of those representative male dollars in hourly wages, that gap has narrowed by a mere 2.2 per cent over the course of the last decade. To be sure, the moral arc of the universe is long.
This is not to say that progress has not been made. Looking at a longer span of time, beginning in 1988, that wage gap has declined by over seven per cent. According to Drolet, the narrowing of the gap can be attributed to a number of things including the entrance of some women into high pay sectors and positions up until recently considered the exclusive domain of men, longer tenure of women workers, a sharp increase in the level of education attained by the average woman and, unfortunately, a decline in real wages for lower income men.
The good news is that as the average woman in Canada attains levels of education and work experience, what Drolet calls "observable characteristics" similar or higher to the average man, the gender wage gap has narrowed.
The bad news is that as arguments that characterize the average woman as less employable or productive than the average man become increasingly unconvincing, the wage gap remains.
"If females commanded the same returns to these characteristics as males," writes Drolet in a separate study with Michael Baker, referring to characteristics such as education, experience, and occupation title, "we would expect them to receive higher -- not lower -- wages than males."
Myth 5: Government is big, bloated, and full of lazy workers.
Particularly during economic hard times, stories of government excess proliferate. When families everywhere are tightening their belts, the rhetoric goes, why are government employees always the last to feel the pinch?
In truth, B.C. government employees have been feeling the pinch since at least 1980.
Using data on public sector employment provided by Statistics Canada, CCPA economist Iglika Ivanova points out that public sector employment relative to the provincial population has fallen by 10 per cent. In fact, by 2008, with just under 90 employees for every thousand citizens in the province, British Columbia had the lowest public sector employment rate of any province in Canada.
This, says Ivanova, reflects a long-term and bi-partisan determination on the part of successive B.C. governments to trim deficits and cut the public payroll.
The 403,601 workers on that payroll include anyone employed by one of the three levels of government, members of the military, public schools employees, hospital workers, or those toiling away for one of the Crown corporations in the province.
"Simply put," writes Ivanova in a 2010 study, "B.C. entered the recession with one of the leanest public sectors in the country."
Those who bemoan the size of the government often assume its workers are unproductive. While it may be true that the carrot and stick of potential profit and bankruptcy can incentivize efficiency, it does not follow that public workers cannot provide their services cheaply and well.
According to SFU public policy professor Doug McArthur, despite the decline in relative government employment throughout the province, much of B.C.'s economic performance in the years leading up to the recession were driven by public, rather than private, investment.
"There's a belief that the BC economy has been driven by private sector investment," says McArthur. "This ignores the fact that a very large part has really flowed through government coffers or from government resources."
Myth 6: Raise the minimum wage and you get minimal jobs.
Since the minimum wage became a fact of Canadian life in 1918, controversy has raged over its efficacy. Those who oppose an economy-wide floor on wages -- the businesses, and the various policy makers and economics who love them -- tend to approach the debate with an air of righteous rationality.
"Reality isn't the way you wish things to be," wrote two analysts from the Fraser Institute, scolding the Clark government for its announced wage hike last March. "The wishful thinking of politicians and policy-makers can't overcome the unpleasant reality that minimum wage increases are job-killers."
The argument against minimum wage regulation stems from a very basic lesson of economics. Even if you've never taken ECON 101, you understand this lesson intuitively: raise the price of something and, all things being equal, people will buy less of it. What's true of apples at the grocery store is true of labour, say minimum wage opponents. Make it more expensive for businesses to hire new workers and, all things being equal, fewer workers will be hired.
It is, as they say, simple supply and demand.
Not so, says Iglika Ivanova, economist and researcher with the CCPA. While higher prices for apples might lead a shopper to switch to oranges, employers do not necessarily enjoy that luxury of easy substitution when faced with higher wages. A manager may opt to automate a certain job or ask remaining employees to work harder in the face of higher payroll costs, but in most sectors, there are finite limits on the disposability of workers.
"Unless you are going to go out of business," says Ivanova, "you have to employ someone."
More importantly, she says, the decision to hire or fire an employee is a complex one. And of the myriad factors that influence that decision -- which can include prevailing interest rates, taxes, currency values, and other business costs -- one stands clear above the rest:
"The biggest driver of investment decisions is expectations for the general economic environment," says Ivanova. In other words, reasonable variations in the lowest wage paid may be secondary in importance before the fundamental question: "Do businesses think there will be a market for their product?"
There is some evidence that a statutory minimum not only benefits society, but can help businesses as well.
When a company begins to pay a higher wage to its least paid workers, it can improve morale and productivity. Similarly, as a study by Alan Krueger, President Obama's recent pick for his chief economic advisor, concluded, minimum wage hikes can reduce the time it takes businesses to fill positions along with overall turnover.
While Ivanova concedes that the minimum wage only applies to a small portion of the overall labour force -- in 2009, 2.3 per cent of workers received the minimum, of which less than half were adults -- one percent of the all workers in B.C. is still a "significant concern."
"The people who are employed at minimum wage jobs usually have very low total income so when you introduce the minimum wage, you give these people more income," says Ivanova. Ultimately, because the poor tend to save significantly less of every dollar earned than the rich, a minimum wage can be both moral and economically sound policy.
To read six more myths about jobs in B.C. click here. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- Tsunami senors to be dropped into deep sea off of Vancouver Island
- Student groups file court challenge against Quebec protest law
- ...while on the streets, pirates and ninjas put aside mutual animosity to join student protests
41
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Fish-counter
37 weeks ago
The present system is not working, is it?
Government grants, HRDC top-ups and straight handouts are band-aid solutions.
Ever since I moved to BC, government and industry hacks were talking about "Value -Added" in the forest industry. What really happened was an increase in the sale of raw logs. Which is just one example of how British Columbians know virtually nothing collectively about how to start a real business.
We live in a province surrounded by trees and with 100 million people in the market hinterland, which includes western north America, yet we buy our known-down furniture from Ikea. It makes no sense.
Our biggest industry is illegal and untaxed. That makes no sense either. Marijuana should be legalised and taxed, period.
Is there something in the air that makes British Columbians totally impotent and uncreative except in the growing of pot plants, or is it just the union malaise?
It is hard to know who to vote for, and it should come as no surprise that the abstentions outnumber the majority votes in many elections. We have the choice between union rule or anti-environmentalism at its worst. Neither option is particualarly apprealing.
Job creation is the last thing on any politician's agenda, when there are so many rich pork-barrels and pension plums to be picked.
woodworker
37 weeks ago
oil jobs
The idea that oil and gas produces less than 10,000 jobs is really out to lunch. A count of all the camps in North East BC would likely give a numbe close to or over that 10,000 number. Remember some of those camps have over 500 rooms. How many live in BC and work the Alberta oil patch. Two weeks in one week out. I agree the oil companies don't hire many directly but the contractors and trades cover big numbers. A better way to count it would be to take the number of workers in Fort Nelson, Fort St. John, Dawson creek and surrounding areas. subtract 10% for the farming and lumber industries and then add about 5000 or more for the camp workers. My son was just in Fort Nelson. Three loaded 737's daily moving workers in and out for change over. That alone or a two week in rotation adds up to over 10,000.
snert
37 weeks ago
Debunking myths
"Counting all those employed in various support activities -- the surveyors, the electrical engineers, and the many other contractors who hold jobs auxiliary to exploration and extraction but who work for independent companies -- requires a little guess work."
If you're going to go around debunking myths you might want to do it without the "guess work".
PoliticallyRevolting
37 weeks ago
Myth 1: Education doesn't pay.
An interesting article. I have a few issues with your first "myth".
"Lemieux, along with UBC colleague W. Craig Riddell and University of Montreal researcher Brahim Boudarbat, found that the average holder of a bachelor's degree can now expect to make 32 per cent more than someone of similar work experience who holds a high school diploma."
This point is irrelevant. A fair comparison must assume that post secondary graduates lack work experience (generally 4-5 years worth) when compared to workers who hold only a high school diploma. The lack of work experience combined with the lost wages for the years spent at university as well as the cost of tuition must be taken into account in any meaningful analysis of this "myth". I believe that ignoring such factors deflates the cost of this investment which, whilst perhaps still a good one, must be considered carefully and honestly when we're contemplating our futures in the job market. Crawford Kilian's article examines these issues as well as others, such as the falling wages of graduates, and her article is a worthy read for anyone interested in the subject.
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/08/29/Going-to-College-Worth-It/.
surlycat
37 weeks ago
Edumacation
I would like to see a university professor/researcher publish a study that finds that the product that their employer peddles is a huge waste of money AND keep their job or funding!
PoliticallyRevolting
37 weeks ago
@surly
actually University professor's are often tenured. tenure exists in fact for exactly the purpose of allowing them to speak unpopular opinions and to study uncomfortable topics without risk of reprisal by firing. funding bodies often employ similiar safeguards.
I am sure though that it is rare to find anyone in any occupation eager to dismiss the value of their product.
Fiat lux
37 weeks ago
Economists have been leading
Economists have been leading the world and humanity down the garden path of self destruction, especially in the last 40 years.
Thanks to their miseducation and bad advice, the world is heading into a major depression, which makes their predictions and advice worthless, as it always has been. .
Their GDP is a fraud and there's absolutely no way to "recovery" and further "growth", because there are 7 billion people, with 3 billion more in the next 20 years and finite resources, now controlled and exploited by special interests, causing incredible poverty and starvation, growing by the minute, while the GPD figures also grow.
In any recession, or depression, the so called "educated" are the first to go. I have seen their fate in the last depression and in the post war years, and that was when I decided to learn a trade, because people trained in the logical world of trades, especially on a piece of land, could always find something to do and exchange for bread, while the "educated" were starving.
I had my education and was 28 when I went into an apprenticeship and never looked back, because one trade led to another and toward self sufficiency.
"Jobs" and "32% higher earnings" are garbage, meaning total reliance on the system and when the system croaks, so do the "earnings".
Our present system relies on total enslavement and subservience to a ruling sector, exploiting humanity and resources life depends on with the perceived energy of imaginary money, sold by the priesthood of economists.
If they had any brains they would work on how to make people and societies self reliant to avoid the criminal economic ups and downs caused by their ignorance and the gambling casinos of the so called "markets" that have nothing to do with real economics, or real markets by people, for people.
Ed Deak.
david hadaway
37 weeks ago
statistics
Perception is distorted by presentation. "Just under 90 (public) employees to every thousand citizens' sounds low but isn't it more usual to compare like with like?
Our working population is about 2,300,000, that gives you just over 170 per thousand or put more conventionally 17.4%. Maybe that is perfectly acceptable, but it's still nearly twice what you imply.
Pootle
37 weeks ago
Oil & Gas
Regarding the oil & gas numbers proposed by this article and disputed by some posters...
I've been hunting the Peace Region and the Montney gas-play area for around 15 years. I suggest the skeptics of the tyee numbers take a closer look around. When Chetwynd was really booming, how many of the license plates in those hotels (or out in the camps) were from BC and how many were from Alberta? For those working in camps, how many spent there wages in Northeastern BC and how many spent those wages at "Home" (Alberta, the lower mainland, elsewhere in the country).
There were certainly some people that made large sums of money - some of the owners of small businesses servicing the industry in the area (paint, blasting, vehicle service, etc.) have done quite well based on the expensive toys I have seen them purchasing - but how many of them are there? FSJ has a TOTAL population just under 20,000!
More on the article as a whole later.
Lance.Peters
37 weeks ago
Myth 1
I just thought I might comment - I am a fully trained, soon to be certified High School Teacher, with a school debt approaching $100k, and I am currently working for minimum wage - driving a cab. I was close to top in my class and got great recommendations and references from my practicum. So, I'd like to know what this says about the benefits of leaving a job where I was making over $20/hr. in order to better myself and try to make the world a better place. Sorry if this sounds like bitter grapes, but I thought a real-life example might be more relevant than a university study - I've just spent enough time reading those to know something about their value & realism.
Sask Resident
37 weeks ago
Average difference in annual
Average difference in annual income between those with various levels of education, assuming that they are working. Why compare a university graduate to a high school grad and not a tech school grad? Or compare a psychology BA to a plumber?
The service industry provides the most jobs, but the service industry relies on the money from base and secondary industries like farming, lumber, O&G, mining, etc. If nobody makes money, the service industry just disappears.
Fii
37 weeks ago
Lance- if you're up for it,
Lance- if you're up for it, take your teaching degree and get the heck out of Canada for a few years. Teach overseas. You'll gain a wealth of experience, possibly learn a new language, wipe out your debt (or come closer to it than you will EVER do here) and meet amazing people you would otherwise never have encountered. You'll get GOOD jobs too with your teaching certification.
firefox007
37 weeks ago
Ed Deak Again & Again & Again
Mr. Deak, how many comments are you going to spam, spam, spam this comments section with? [OFFENSIVE COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]
Fish-counter
37 weeks ago
All politicians play a zero sum game
They have no clue about actual "job creation" (translation: government handouts). It is like "value added" (translation: log exports) or "child poverty" (translation: family poverty); just an empty, meaningless phrase.
I emigrated to Canada from England in 1974. It is sad to see younng, newly-graduated teachers having to move to Asia to find work, but I understand the driving force behind it. We just don't sprog enough kids in this country. Teaching in Asia is good experience for teaching in Asia but not good experience for teaching in Canada. The two are completely disconnected.
RickW
37 weeks ago
Fish-counter & Ed have it!
Why in heaven's name is the emphasis always on "getting a job"? Why aren't the basics of starting a business taught in school? "Getting a job" means that SOMEONE has to have a job at hand to get. Lance Peters example is apt. One goes through the system, intent on "learning" something - but with very little idea how that learning will be applied. Assumptions are made that a job will somehow be available.
Could it be that encouraging people to start a business, rather than work in a business, engenders independent thought?
alive
37 weeks ago
All in a day's (or nights) work.
Nurses are being scorned for being late with meds, while they are holding their bladder because they don't have time to use the restroom, starving because they missed lunch, being peed on, puked on, pooped on, bled on, and are missing their family while taking care of yours. In the minute it took you to read this, nurses all over the world are saving lives.
gerrycgc
37 weeks ago
Federal Government Positions
To get work with the Federal Government, it does not hurt to be, a visible minority, and have a degree and higher education. This is who I notice being hired, at work, nowadays. Although I do see the odd caucasian as well. About 10 percent of the new hires are white. These jobs I am talking about only require grade 12 or GED. But, most who are hired have degrees, it is called, an asset qualification. Even over work experience. The new people, with degress, are very good at passing exams. Which the feds use, to promote people higher up the ladder. Seniority is out. Yes, I am a federal Employee.
Fiat lux
37 weeks ago
Alive... I've spent 14
Alive... I've spent 14 months in a military hospital after the war, 3 as a patient and 11 as a volunteer orderly, under the most primitive, starving conditions.
Had a few short stays, until 09, when I had to have 5 operations, starting with a colon cancer one that went bad, 3 weeks on life support, hooked up to dozens of tubes and wires, dirty, messy, out of control.
So, I have seen what nurses of all nations on Earth, have to face every day and how they save lives, under the worst conditions.
As far I'm concerned they are the greatest people, working endless hours, doing the most disgusting tasks with smile on their faces and will never get paid enough for their work.
Unlike many other professions paying millions to some jerks to steal more, from more.
One of my nurses in intensive care, called the doctors in for a conference and told them off in no uncertain terms they they were killing me and what they should do. I heard the whole thing.
They had a conference call with some specialists in Kamloops and the nurse was correct.
Bless them all !!!
Ed Deak.
Coastalhermit
37 weeks ago
institutionalized education is a myth
The problem with the study is that it shows up a hypothetical income difference between a degree holder and, presumably, a high school diploma-only holder as if that alone warrants anything. Relevant, I suppose, for securing the tenured and invested but not so much for real people.
And untrue in my experience. You want to see rich people - look to entrepreneurs, landlords and people who actually MAKE stuff.
First off, degrees aren't relevant to work. All a degree tells an employer is that you had the perseverance to endure mindless drudgery and theoretical clap-trap. Not a bad quality if it is the government hiring but for anyone else it just suggests that you are malleable to NOW learning the job they have for you.
And it won't look at all like the university implied.
The truth is: our education system sucks. And it sucks because it is based on putting out assembly line workers or else 'elitists' who pontificate (not unlike this comment, actually). It's out of date.
We need an education system not rooted in 50's thinking. We need 'new thinkers', new ideas, new institutions. We need the kind of learning dynamism that spawned Silicon Valley.
Don't teach my kid to be an accountant or lawyer or GOD FORBID - a teacher (it is like embalming him). Instead - give 'em a lab and a chance to whack at new battery technology, new biology, even new nuclear power crap...
Personally, I hope the next 'school' is one of cutting-edge environmentalism. We need it.
dorothy
37 weeks ago
firefox007
"we need at least five or six of your one-note, boring spam for each & every Tyee story to make our day. By the way, take a major hike."
Or else what? You can take up an argument if you have points to make, but not spew this kind of meanspirited whine. This column does not belong solely to you, nor is it obliged to accomodate your indiosyncrasies, and Ed Deak has the righ to speak as much as you do. I know whom I'd rather be 'entertained' by.
Coastalhermit
37 weeks ago
Damn me....
I ranted without reading Ed Deak. Sorry. I agree with Fiat Lux aka ED DEAK and I hope my contribution indicated that.
Put more succinctly: institutionalized education is now an oxymoron. Times change too fast. By the time they have made a course and hired a teacher and had it all accredited, it is passe'. Gotta degree? Too late!
You used to have to really learn the job while on the job. Now you have to know how to create the job. Don't look to the educators, young person, look to your own sense of what's happening and go for it.
I hope you choose wisely, grasshopper.
reality_check
37 weeks ago
myth #4
One has to be careful to continue to victimize women (although many have a love-hate relationship with that)! The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and they know it!
On average this and average that! The problem is that the younger the woman, the closer she is getting to being even, probably hitting the 90 cents or better! Considering the woman will not have to buy a car that works (or have a car at all) to be "considered", considering many women can live with other females or with their parents even, I say TODAY most women and men are ... well ...even, and I am not counting the huge (and totally self-absorbed) alimony and divorce settlements that many women get. I know it does not please the womanizers and victim thrillers out there, but it just is the truth! PS: Why some many guys feel they have to protect women? GUYS, last time I check, women ALMOST NEVER mention MEN in their complaints! Go ahead! Check all of those women's organizations' mission statements. It is always women and children, women and children, women and children! Men? WHo cares? The fact that many are often DEAD (and often protecting women and children) does not even dawn on them! I bet those women studies sessions do disMISS those facts! Okay! You can cry now!
doggone
37 weeks ago
I don't read the article or the comments
I happen to know about Myths. See you soon.
Gonna be a rough ride down.
Let's go - no tricks
Fii
37 weeks ago
You are sooo wrong there, Fish-counter!!
At least where the lower mainland is concerned, teaching in Asia is totally connected to teaching here. Given the hundreds of thousands of international Asian students now studying in high schools and universities here, the experience of teaching overseas is invaluable. I read in the Courier years ago how in BC new graduates with education degrees were being fast-tracked into public school positions simply because they had the experience of teaching ESL. It is very different from teaching native speakers but the two are totally becoming entertwined in our system... the best teachers will be able to relate to both groups of students. The international students keep coming and coming... As far as the country as a whole, since certification is provincial, you could say teaching from province to province is more disconnected.
Henry Dorsett Case
37 weeks ago
@ED DEAK
I always look forward to your posts. Your a teacher. Thanks.
woodworker
37 weeks ago
Alberta plates in the BC patch
A lot of the Alberta plates you see in the peace are company vehicles driven by BC workers. All the vehicles that rarely left BC owned by one company my son worked for had Alberta plates. It was an Alberta company with a BC office.
As far as oil and gas industry creating jobs answer this. What is the capital of Newfoundland. Answer Fort MacMurray. And Lots of BC people work there as well. Also two of my sons now work in Alberta. Why, they hate the place but no jobs in BC. I have done the onlines searches for one son. An apprentice tradesman. Alberta jobs posted outnumber BC jobs about 15 to one and they actually hire apprentices there. When did you last see a BC posting for a trade that said 10 positions. Common in Alberta.
woodworker
37 weeks ago
concrete fan?
This guy should never be allowed to write about job when he can't even post the correct caption with the picture. It is Power trowel. Concrete fan my goodness.
crh
37 weeks ago
Ed Deak
Thank you for your history lessons. Those who ignore it are doomed to repeat it. Right firefox007?
David Beers
37 weeks ago
my fault woodworker
I wrote that caption and will change it
D
Dan the socialist
37 weeks ago
According to a report
According to a report published last spring by Marie Drolet of Statistics Canada, in 1992, the average Canadian woman with a full time job took home about 72 cents in annual pay for every dollar earned by a male with the same job, education, and work experience.
=========
Prove it. Name some of these companies please if you are going to make that accusation. Also if that is the case why is there not a load of discrimination cases from Labour board, to human rights to the courts???
Dan the socialist
37 weeks ago
I think education is good
I think education is good but getting a trade over going to university has its benefits, like you do not finish a 4-5 year degree with $20-$50,000+ in student debt which will hamstrung you for years. Plus you may not get a good paying job at the start either. But with a trade no debt, can start saving, more disposable income (especially if you get a union job compared to non union) and if you are smart with money you could have 5+ years of your mortgage already paid while the university student is still struggling...
Plus it is also hard to know what to take in University. What is the sense of taking 'Art' Programmes? What jobs do they get? I am not saying university is bad but there will always be construction and the need for trades people.
Doctors, nurses etc are good careers but then again you are stuck with huge debt even with some bursaries or grants (unless you can somehow get a free ride or have wealthy parents) but then again Nursing is not easy, long hours, treated like garbage by the government..
The cost of post secondary and the debt is huge now. I would say start taxing corporations properly and reduce or eliminate post secondary fees but that will never happen and all we will see is only the rich being able to go..
Dan the socialist
37 weeks ago
While Ivanova concedes that
While Ivanova concedes that the minimum wage only applies to a small portion of the overall labour force -- in 2009, 2.3 per cent of workers received the minimum, of which less than half were adults -- one percent of the all workers in B.C. is still a "significant concern."
==========
The numbers are skewed. I see jobs that pay 25 cents above min wage so the numbers make it look better than what it really is. Paying someone 50 cents, a buck above min wage is still min wage to me. Personally I consider any wage under $12 an hour min wage.
Fiat lux
37 weeks ago
Another gimmick is the word
Another gimmick is the word "job".
What does it mean ? StatsCan defines a fulltime job at over 30 hrs/wk. regardless how much the worker gets paid.
http://www.ehow.com/about_6638686_canadian-definition-part-time.html
I was making the minimum wage .75 cents/hr, when I got into apprenticeship in '55. My wife was making similar wages in various odd jobs.
Our rent was $35/mo for 2 rooms, and our grocery bill between $10 20/wk.
One could get a decent restaurant meal for $1.25, cup of coffee .10cents, a hot dog .25 cents, a hamburger .50cents.
I drove a 1948 Hillman Minx, gas .27cents/gal or 4 litres for all practical purposes.
Try to survive on minimum wage jobs today in our great "wealth creating" "free trade" "globalized" society, when even the meaning of words has been twisted out of recognition to mislead the public into believing that everything is OK.
Ed Deak.
dorothy
37 weeks ago
The Man is back
"Technically' I don't know who 'the man' is and where it is he's back from, but I would politely ask: Is it possible for you to NOT make your contribution into a step in a pissing contest between you and Dave? It kind of makes everybody else feel somewhat excluded.
Bad form.
Coastalhermit
37 weeks ago
Good to be poor
Seems real family income has been stagnant over the last three decades. But GDP has boomed. What that means is that the country is getting richer somehow while the people are not. Seems the rich are getting richer. Quel surprise.
This 'unfairness' discrepancy happened despite a major increase in degree holders and loss of blue collar workers. So, the poor are getting poorer, too.
Ya still think education is good? Only if you enroll in Harvard, pay the freight, sell your soul and crush everyone before you will you do well financially with your degree.
Forgetting ethics, morality, the common good and other people is the only way left for the poor guy to get rich thus the rise in crime and drug dealing.
Frankly, I am proud to be poor. Shows some character.
freebear
37 weeks ago
Voodoo economics and trickle down
The only drickle down is the elitist manipulators peeing on citizens/consumers!
Fii
37 weeks ago
Dan
I think if women are earning less for the same job it's often because they don't demand a raise as a man would. I worked at a woman's gym years ago where many young women had been working for years with no raise. I couldn't believe it! I pushed them to demand a raise (which they did- a measly one but they got it) but only after telling them that "But I like the women I work with" was a lame-assed excuse to put up with crap pay. Unreal!! Women, in general, are just not as assertive when it comes to demanding what they are worth. I see my friends do it, I've done it. Freakin' annoying.
RunningFrog
37 weeks ago
Since Enron took over bc
Since Enron took over bc hydro's paper work posing as Accenture; they have enacted at least 3 times a full systemic elimination of clerical jobs. This OUTRAGEOUS DISCRIMINATION is what is WRONG at BC Hydro.. Just merrily going along with this very FAKE view of new jobs?!
More BC Liberals HORRORS = Christy Clark F-
Steven Forth
37 weeks ago
Trades and Company Creation
Is there a false barrier between trades and university education? Maybe we would be better off if more people had both, and if more professions (architecture and engineering to start with) required a trade to enter. Denmark has a great culture of architecture and design, and a Danish architect I know suggests that this is in part because Danish architects are required to have training in a building trade (not sure if this is actually true). As we live longer working lives I think more of us should consider a career in a trade, a career in a profession and a career in a company, possibly overlapping. Cross-over work in government and non-profits should also be part of the picture. And I agree, we should teach people more about how to create and grow their own companies. If you don't have a job start a company. You may fail but you will probably learn a lot.
Fish-counter
34 weeks ago
You don't save a species by building a zoo.
and you don't create a job that way either.
"Job creation" is a nice phrase, like "child poverty". It has a nice ring to it, but nothing else. Jobs can be created but it is just another form of welfare. You don't create jobs, you have to build the business.
Look at "Value Added" in the forest industry. What did it mean, what was the result? More raw log sales is what.
Jobs are created when people use their own initiative and drive to build an industry. It sure as hell doesn't happen at the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen.
BC's big industry is words. Catchy words that mean nothing. As Falstaff said, "What is honour? A word. What is a word? Air".
BC should build an industry called IKEA 2.0 and we should imitate the Swedes. I would do it myself, but I am a 60 year old fish counter and furniture doesn't have fins.
Canadian's idea of building a business is to line up at the EI office and beg for a guvmint grant. No. Entrepreneurship is the answer. That and honest hard work.
Fish-counter
34 weeks ago
You don't save a species by building a zoo.
and you don't create a job that way either.
"Job creation" is a nice phrase, like "child poverty". It has a nice ring to it, but nothing else. Jobs can be created but it is just another form of welfare. You don't create jobs, you have to build the business.
Look at "Value Added" in the forest industry. What did it mean, what was the result? More raw log sales is what.
Jobs are created when people use their own initiative and drive to build an industry. It sure as hell doesn't happen at the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen.
BC's big industry is words. Catchy words that mean nothing. As Falstaff said, "What is honour? A word. What is a word? Air".
BC should build an industry called IKEA 2.0 and we should imitate the Swedes. I would do it myself, but I am a 60 year old fish counter and furniture doesn't have fins.
Canadian's idea of building a business is to line up at the EI office and beg for a guvmint grant. No. Entrepreneurship is the answer. That and honest hard work.