Ontario a Have-Not Province?
Has anyone noticed a trend in the last few years about what jobs are available? In general, there are fewer manufacturing jobs and more service jobs. Every few years I read an article that talks about that in general terms and it’s happening right before our eyes. Workers who are in manufacturing are being replaced by automation and by off-shore workers who are paid less. Unions can slow down the process but not stop the trend. The best thing unions can do is to stay away from the factories - witness the Japanese factories in Ontario. The next thing they can do is offer concessions - witness the recent concessions at Ford. But eventually, there will be fewer manufacturing jobs.
To cope with the coming change, we need to direct our energies at service jobs. These include financial, call centres, construction, retail, travel, health, and more. Some very specialized manufacturing that benefits by being very close to the end market will survive but automotive manufacturing in Canada will basically get to be quite a small industry.
Since Ontario depends more on manufacturing than western provinces, Ontario is truly in danger of becoming a “have-not” province. So instead of subsidizing industries with little future, Governments should be developing new ones. Focus should be on retraining and support for new small businesses. Why throw good taxpayer money at a lost cause? Buzz Hargrove is already trying to convince politicians to support the CAW - um, sorry, support auto manufacturing. But I bet Buzz is pleased that he’s not too far from retiring from this losing game.
John Draper
May 1st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I agree there should be re-training and more focus on skills development for the unemployed and the under employed. I would like to see more emphasis on apprenticeship programs, which should be available starting at the high school level. Years ago, one could take mechanics for the last two years of high school which counted towards the apprenticeship, we need to bring these programs back.
According to today’s Sun, the trend shows wages going down, young people entering the job market today may be better educated, but they’re earning less money than their parents did a generation ago, according to new census data released Thursday by Statistics Canada, and it’s not slowing down. Maybe because Ontario is becoming more of a service industry which generally pays lower wages.
Not a good scenario for the new generation of workers.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Consumption is the root of our manufacturing centred economy and our “manual labour” force, which I believe to be the largest component of the employment picture here, depends very much on the growth of that consumerism. Whether or not we see far enough ahead to realize that the apparent emergence and ongoing growth of an eco-focused population will actually curtail that consumption (which is essential to sustain the manufacturing-based economy), will be key to redeploying that workforce toward a sustainable fulfillment of newly developing needs as quickly as possible. As long as the strategy is to shore up unsustainable “jobs”, essentially to maintain livelyhoods in the short term, rather than directing those resources into developing the means by which emerging and growing needs are met and expanded, there can be no effective longterm solutions to the employment problem being experienced to some degree just about everywhere. Just because we see a job as something that exists of its own accord, something we are entitled to in order to survive, we actually miss the concept that it is in fact only a means by which we satisfy a prevailing need that may or may not continue to exist from one day to the next. We must come to the understanding that a sustainable job does not exist at all, but that the need which that job fulfills is the sustainable component in the equation. We must employ our resources to develop and grow, not artificial needs, but sustainable needs, and that will provide expanding opportunities for jobs to fill those needs. One example that illustrates this is the multi-million dollar injection by our Provincial government into the auto sector only to see that short-term lift to evaporate and still result in the eventual layoff of thousands as was just announced. What a waste of resources. Bailouts are ultimately doomed to be unsuccessful attempts to avoid the inevitable. Research and development, although lacking in short-term effects, are the only effective means by which government can lay the way to long-term sustainability in the employment challenge. The greater the need which a job fulfills, the more value it adds and the greater the reward it provides. Detecting, understanding and addressing real-life needs (R&D) as they emerge, grow, decline and eventually fade, are the key to a healthy and sustainable “job” market.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Manufacturing is declining. But…there will lots of opportunity for those who forget about University and the so-called white collar jobs - those jobs so easily done by computers, and instead get involved in trades and even non-traditional, non-regulated trades.
Auto mechancis - now called “Auto technicians” , Electricians, Industrial Millwrights, Welders, Pipe Fitters, Plumbers,
Gas fitters - both natural and propane, Air-conditioning service people, all the building trades, in short anything automation cannot do - this is where good high paying jobs will be found in the future. More people are retiring early - recreational vehicle service people - already in demand and in short supply.
Adults need to stop pushing young people towards University, instead get them working earlier and with wise financial advice they’ll end their careers with more bucks to retire on than those who spend those extra years earning degree after degree.
That’s how I see it. Bob Robertson
May 7th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Just over the horizon, the bambino boomers will begin to require home care, physiotherapy sessions, colonostomy bag recycling, walker repair, wheel-chair turbo-charging and medicinal marijuana bong cleaning.
While I agree with the diminishment of manufactorturing jobs and white collar jobs, and the corresponding increase in trade and service industry jobs, I depart from the discouragement of attending university.
Intelligence & knowledge are not keys to poverty, especially when they menage a trois with creativity. Almost daily I pass down College Street in Toronto, between Bay and Spadina. On that stretch are several new buildings for UofT specializing in exotic sciences, and a block away is the MaRS structure, where venture capitalists mix with StarTrekie sciences, and within 5 blocks on University Ave. state of the art medical facilities are at hand to implement some of the manifestations from MaRS. This turf positively glows with creative intelligence; we ain’t seen anything yet. Magic is afoot.
While everything has cycles, best before dates, and outright termination, there is one thing that will never recede, will increase in perpetuity, and is the ultimate green — knowledge. University should always be regarded as a highly valued destination.