In a drop that some economists are calling 'worrisome,' Canada’s labour market shed 84,000 jobs in February, one of the sharpest monthly declines seen outside the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is entirely supply and demand for labor, that was my whole point. We increased supply of workers while interest rate hikes lowered demand by mechanically slowing money supply creation, what am I missing?
Is it that difficult to grasp?! You’re missing the part where the people in charge of this “natural” process have their thumbs on the fucking scale.
Don’t cherry pick economic theory to make this yet another “blame the workers” bullshit story. Supply and demand are economic constants in a microeconomy for theoretical modelling purposes, not a quotable to explain why things are the way they are.
As soon as you start adding in stuff like real people with real, non-economic needs, the model breaks in the real world.
See, for example, the Finnish approach to housing that reflects social needs rather than economic outcome for model that doesn’t end up with us plebs all on the bottom.
So you think you can just dump workers into a country and it has no affect on housing demand or wages?
I was also somehow blaming the workers for being to numerous, is that what you mean? I was intending on blaming the government, as they appear beholden to corporations pushing modern forms of slavery.
So you think you can just dump workers into a country and it has no affect on housing demand or wages?
That’s not what I said. You aren’t following what I and others are saying.
When you say stuff like “it’s entirely supply and demand for labour”, you are replaying talking points of that same government and those same corporate interests, who both use language around housing like it’s something people can just stop wanting by framing it as a commodity.
Our issues aren’t based on population changes one way or another, they exist squarely because we treat housing as a commodity and as a financial vehicle. There is effectively enough housing for everyone, it’s just been placed out of reach for many.
Supply and demand explains the price of lemons in a place that can’t grow lemons. It does not work for housing, which is a hard requirement of social stability, that’s why we can’t treat housing like we treat buying and selling lemons.
Slow down and read what is being said to you, and for your own peace of mind, stop interpreting criticism as a personal attack.
Our issues aren’t based on population changes one way or another, they exist squarely because we treat housing as a commodity and as a financial vehicle. There is effectively enough housing for everyone, it’s just been placed out of reach for many.
Heres a citation with statistics that says that youre wrong, that housing completions greatly lagged population growth. Do you have any proof of your assertion that there is enough housing, and that there is no shortage?
If there was a large supply relative to demand then rents would have been shrinking when population was rising, we have a 1% tax on vacant housing and a low vacancy rate.
Nice theory you got there, shame it doesn’t bear out in practice. In normal labour conditions workers have no leverage over employers to demand higher wages because workers have to take any job available in order to avoid homelessness and hunger. Workers demand for jobs is inelastic. Only in labour shortage scenarios workers have leverage to demand higher wages. But even then industry consolidation counteracts that because large corporations not only have price setting market power in the consumer market but also in the labour market. This is why the only consistent way to create similar leverage for worker in the labour market is unionization. Wages have never grown significantly enough to chip away wealth inequality except in the presence of strong and wide unionization. This is the main reason why increased labour productivity decoupled from wage increases since the 70s and 80s, when union busting started picking up around the world.
Rapidly increasing labour supply can make wages worse but that’s not the main driver as there have been periods where wages have both been increasing with significant immigration and also others where wages were stagnant without significant immigration.
No I wouldn’t. I would say unionization is eroded through various union busting strategies as practiced as far back as the 19th century. The incentives to bust unions operate on individual firm level and do not require any other macro level phenomena to explain. Firms bust unions because unions increase wages and higher wages reduce profits.
Canadian government does PLENTY of union busting. Firms and government are completely aligned on this.
Government does everything it can to keep canadian wages low to attract business. Corporations are more likely to invest extract from Canada if the government of Canada undermines fair negotiations and writes back to work legislation every time and stomps all over its citizens’rights.
The AC union fought back and ignored back to work orders. They had huge support among Canadians. They were then quietly taken out back and shot by the Canadian government and its arbitration.
You won’t see me disagreeing with that. I’ve been following the AC, CP, CN strikes and I saw what you observed. I think it’s not even primarily for foreign investment, although that probably is a downstrean effect. I think it’s primarily for our own corporations’ owners benefit. They have significant lobbying power, and at least two of the major parties ideologically support firms over workers as many of them still believe in some form of trickle-down free-market economics. It’s bad. There’s been no positive change in direction towards organized labour from the Carney gov’t. I think they’re going to discover that their promises of higher wages would fall flat without strengthening org labour. Perhaps it’s a delayed tactic, an attempt to shore up the economy in these times before they let labour have its share, but that ignores that (sovereign) economic strength largely comes from robust domestic demand, which means higher wages. And I don’t believe it’s a delay tactic anyway. The simpler explanation is the more obvious one.
Perhaps increased job competition can motivate workers to unionise to defend wages and employment. On the other hand, a larger labour supply makes it easier for employers to replace uncooperative or striking workers, weakening bargaining power.
I personally see a large unemployment now as the Phillips curve inverted with high interest rates, and I now clearly see the wage suppression which erodes unions. But we can agree to disagree I guess.
I do think sometimes high skilled workers can increase productivity and increases per capita living standards, but we moved away from that under Trudeau to hide falling GDP, and to quell a wage price spiral that benefited workers and hurt asset holders who benefited from the asset price inflation of covid stimulus and QE. Productivity is what matters here though, which determines whether it helps rather than hurts existing laborers.
It is entirely supply and demand for labor, that was my whole point. We increased supply of workers while interest rate hikes lowered demand by mechanically slowing money supply creation, what am I missing?
Is it that difficult to grasp?! You’re missing the part where the people in charge of this “natural” process have their thumbs on the fucking scale.
Don’t cherry pick economic theory to make this yet another “blame the workers” bullshit story. Supply and demand are economic constants in a microeconomy for theoretical modelling purposes, not a quotable to explain why things are the way they are.
As soon as you start adding in stuff like real people with real, non-economic needs, the model breaks in the real world.
See, for example, the Finnish approach to housing that reflects social needs rather than economic outcome for model that doesn’t end up with us plebs all on the bottom.
So you think you can just dump workers into a country and it has no affect on housing demand or wages?
I was also somehow blaming the workers for being to numerous, is that what you mean? I was intending on blaming the government, as they appear beholden to corporations pushing modern forms of slavery.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140437
That’s not what I said. You aren’t following what I and others are saying.
When you say stuff like “it’s entirely supply and demand for labour”, you are replaying talking points of that same government and those same corporate interests, who both use language around housing like it’s something people can just stop wanting by framing it as a commodity.
Our issues aren’t based on population changes one way or another, they exist squarely because we treat housing as a commodity and as a financial vehicle. There is effectively enough housing for everyone, it’s just been placed out of reach for many.
Supply and demand explains the price of lemons in a place that can’t grow lemons. It does not work for housing, which is a hard requirement of social stability, that’s why we can’t treat housing like we treat buying and selling lemons.
Slow down and read what is being said to you, and for your own peace of mind, stop interpreting criticism as a personal attack.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/canadas-growing-housing-gap-1972-2022.pdf
Heres a citation with statistics that says that youre wrong, that housing completions greatly lagged population growth. Do you have any proof of your assertion that there is enough housing, and that there is no shortage?
If there was a large supply relative to demand then rents would have been shrinking when population was rising, we have a 1% tax on vacant housing and a low vacancy rate.
https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-data-and-research/market-reports/rental-market-reports-major-centres
So I respectfully disagree with your assertions, based on these statistics.
Nice theory you got there, shame it doesn’t bear out in practice. In normal labour conditions workers have no leverage over employers to demand higher wages because workers have to take any job available in order to avoid homelessness and hunger. Workers demand for jobs is inelastic. Only in labour shortage scenarios workers have leverage to demand higher wages. But even then industry consolidation counteracts that because large corporations not only have price setting market power in the consumer market but also in the labour market. This is why the only consistent way to create similar leverage for worker in the labour market is unionization. Wages have never grown significantly enough to chip away wealth inequality except in the presence of strong and wide unionization. This is the main reason why increased labour productivity decoupled from wage increases since the 70s and 80s, when union busting started picking up around the world.
Rapidly increasing labour supply can make wages worse but that’s not the main driver as there have been periods where wages have both been increasing with significant immigration and also others where wages were stagnant without significant immigration.
Sure I’d say unionization is eroded by mass immigration and capital shallowing, wouldnt you?
No I wouldn’t. I would say unionization is eroded through various union busting strategies as practiced as far back as the 19th century. The incentives to bust unions operate on individual firm level and do not require any other macro level phenomena to explain. Firms bust unions because unions increase wages and higher wages reduce profits.
Canadian government does PLENTY of union busting. Firms and government are completely aligned on this.
Government does everything it can to keep canadian wages low to attract business. Corporations are more likely to
investextract from Canada if the government of Canada undermines fair negotiations and writes back to work legislation every time and stomps all over its citizens’rights.The AC union fought back and ignored back to work orders. They had huge support among Canadians. They were then quietly taken out back and shot by the Canadian government and its arbitration.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aircanada/comments/1r7jj82/arbitration_over_for_flight_attendants/
You won’t see me disagreeing with that. I’ve been following the AC, CP, CN strikes and I saw what you observed. I think it’s not even primarily for foreign investment, although that probably is a downstrean effect. I think it’s primarily for our own corporations’ owners benefit. They have significant lobbying power, and at least two of the major parties ideologically support firms over workers as many of them still believe in some form of trickle-down free-market economics. It’s bad. There’s been no positive change in direction towards organized labour from the Carney gov’t. I think they’re going to discover that their promises of higher wages would fall flat without strengthening org labour. Perhaps it’s a delayed tactic, an attempt to shore up the economy in these times before they let labour have its share, but that ignores that (sovereign) economic strength largely comes from robust domestic demand, which means higher wages. And I don’t believe it’s a delay tactic anyway. The simpler explanation is the more obvious one.
Perhaps increased job competition can motivate workers to unionise to defend wages and employment. On the other hand, a larger labour supply makes it easier for employers to replace uncooperative or striking workers, weakening bargaining power.
I personally see a large unemployment now as the Phillips curve inverted with high interest rates, and I now clearly see the wage suppression which erodes unions. But we can agree to disagree I guess.
I do think sometimes high skilled workers can increase productivity and increases per capita living standards, but we moved away from that under Trudeau to hide falling GDP, and to quell a wage price spiral that benefited workers and hurt asset holders who benefited from the asset price inflation of covid stimulus and QE. Productivity is what matters here though, which determines whether it helps rather than hurts existing laborers.