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Three New Videos: Trump’s Trade War; Wages, Profits & Prices; and Defending Living Standards
President Donald Trump’s repeated threats against Canada’s economy have caused great alarm. Meanwhile, home-grown right-wing populist forces have been advancing similar arguments here at home: claiming all of Canada’s problems arise from big government, big unions, or high taxes.
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Alberta Continues to Slip in National Wage Rankings
After a decade of declining real wages, Alberta continues to lag the rest of Canada in repairing wages and living standards for the province’s workers. That is the finding of new research released by the Centre for Future Work.
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Strikes Have Economics Benefits, Not Just Costs
In the tumultuous years since the COVID pandemic and the subsequent outbreak of inflation, Canada has experienced a large number of work stoppages. Canada experienced over 800 strikes and lockouts in 2023, resulting in 6.6 million days of work time lost. That’s much higher than in most recent years, but still lower than peak levels of industrial disputes experienced in the 1970s and 1980s.
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‘Vibecession’: Reconciling Positive Statistics with Negative Sentiment
Newly released data for the third quarter of 2024 (July-September) shows the economy has continued to grow, albeit slowly. Consumer spending was the brightest light in the third quarter data: growing at an annualized rate of 3.5% (in real, inflation-adjusted terms), and constituting the largest single source of new demand.
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Yes, Public Sector Jobs Count, Too
B.C.’s unemployment has been among the lowest in Canada for several years, economic growth and business investment have been among the strongest, and the province now has the highest hourly wages for employees of any province. Yet some business commentators try to debunk that record, claiming it’s all due to public sector spending and hiring.
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Alberta’s Disappearing Advantage for Workers
Alberta once boasted the highest wages in Canada. It was known as a place where working people could find a job, earn decent wages, and build a good life for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, this “Alberta Advantage” has mostly disappeared. Average wages have declined by 10% relative to inflation over the last decade, far more than in any other province. This negative result was not an accident: provincial policies in Alberta have worked to deliberately suppress wages, through measures like a six-year freeze in the minimum wage (now tied for lowest in Canada), restrictions on union organizing and collective bargaining, and very austere wage gains for public sector workers.
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Submission to B.C. Labour Relations Code Review
The B.C. government is undertaking a regular five-year review of its labour relations code, that governs labour standards, union activity, and collective bargaining. As part of this review, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford was invited to appear before the review panel as an expert witness.
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CANADALAND Podcast Explores the ‘War on Workers’
The renowned independent broadcasters at CANADALAND have launched a new series of podcasts (part of their Commons series) exploring issues in work, employment, and fairness. The pilot of the series, titled ‘The War on Workers,’ features an extended conversation with Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford
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Real Wages are Recovering… and That’s Good News!
The beginning of 2024 brought some good labour market news for a change: average real wages in Canada increased in 2023, reversing some of the damage from post-COVID inflation.
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Workers Strike Back
Some observers called 2023 the Year of the Strike, and at times that moniker was fitting. Across a wide range of industries, workers hit the picket lines to support demands for pay increases that kept up with surging inflation. Over the first nine months of 2023 (the latest data at time of writing), Canada lost a total of 2.2 million work days to work stoppages...