[Bruce_the_vii]

Here's a a political speech I worked up. It has 21 ideas on jobs in 471 words. They're suitable for a political "vision" on either the left or right of the political spectrum. It's innovative economics.

.......................Let’s Talk Jobs

Here in Canada there should be more of a focus on jobs. What the people want is more jobs and more better jobs. Going forward there are several ways the labour market could be improved with better government policy and better government management. These mechanisms are:

- Strategic training to meet the proverbial labour shortages.
- A good jobs boom that’s coming from baby boom retirement that can be captured if we get training right.
- More appropriately timed immigration.
- Training the next generation instead of relying on skilled and professional immigrants.
- Enhancing internal migration from the regions by tighter labour markets in destination cities.
- A tighter economy would atrophy the worst employers, this is the standard Knowledge Economy where people move up the ladder to high tech jobs.
- A better economy would raise the defacto market minimum wage significantly, to Alberta levels.
- A shrinking labour force due to the aging population will reduce unemployment in the regions and help the workers there.
- And of course economic growth going forward.

The list of benefits from tight labour markets and better employment is also comprehensive. These are:

-Better employer relations with tighter labour markets.
-Significantly higher government revenues with more people working.
-Productivity improvements at bottom from labour pressure.
-More retired baby boomers working.
-Less anemic self-employment.
-Less involuntary part-time employment.
-Testing for people who have dropped out of labour markets, nominally 6% of adults nationally as of 2008.
-Getting underemployed skilled and professionals, including recent immigrants, into the jobs they need and deserve.
-Fewer low wage jobs, which are net subsidized.
-Slower economic growth in the mega-cites, which are already too big and expensive.
-Tighter economies in the main cities of Canada would encourage businesses to relocate to more economical regions.
-Recession resistant labour markets and foreign competition and foreign disaster resistant labour markets.

There is a lot of attitude around that Canada is fine, we’re a rich country and the economy is just the economy which little can be done about. Meanwhile low wages are pervasive, half the country doesn’t have a proper pension plan and it seems most people are really insecurely employed. People turn a discrete blind eye to all this, even as it affects friends and family. So, yes, these problems affects just about everyone in the country. Taken together the mechanisms listed above are enough for the government to do some contouring of the labour force and the labour markets and without massive spending. So we can work on more jobs and more better jobs going forward with thoughtful programs. We can work on a complex of ideas which empirical economists are not particularly good at analyzing: moving people around, putting pressure on businesses and getting more people out of their house and into the labour force.

[EdwardRI]

It seems like you have ideas of how you'd like to see things, but do you have any plans? Any specific roadmaps to getting to these points? What political dials would you turn? What steps would be taken to achieve these?

This isn't a plan, this is a set of goals.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Oh I have a detailed plan in fact, smart immigration. You could adjust the tightness of the labour markets in the main cities of Canada with appropriate immigration. What you could do is cut the immigration stream to background level, half of what it is, and have special movements to cities with low unemployment. Basically you could let people with job offers in the city in on short order. You'd rely on the international connections of people to find the workers. This would only be a top up, some few thousand families for a city like Calgary - so it's not an administrative problem. This is something like the present program of "provincial nominees" which they try to move into specific provinces. A tight labour market would yield some 21 advantages. The inflation would be no worse than in Calgary in 2008. Actually any form of appropriate immigration would be an improvement on what they have now, an annual quota original set in 1993. a half wise appropriate immigration program would move Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver up to Calgary and Edmonton levels. It'd take several years.

Thanks for the response.

Bruce

[EdwardRI]

I'm not really sure what you mean of tightness of labour markets. What your response seems to indicate what you're trying to do is filling "holes" in Canada's labour force, namely with immigration policies.

While I appreciate the thought that's gone into this, it seems myopic if you are indeed looking at this just from the perspective of immigration. Furthermore, it sounds like a short-term solution. Is Canada not capable of filling the holes in its own labour force? If so, what things might be preventing this? Brain drain? Lack of infrastructure? Lack of population? Et cetera. There's a lot of factors to consider. Since you already have your focus on this, you could incorporate these other perspectives.

Cheers!

[Bruce_the_vii]

Thank you for the response.

You are right, Canada should fill it's own labour holes. I have thought of this. My answer if that in the long term training should be the answer to skilled and professional labour shortages. In the short term businesses and the media will be howling labour shortages so you might as well top up with immigrants. In addition a place like Calgary, that experienced 40% growth in the ten years to 2005, is in need of some immigrants. So go ahead and top up.

Outside of Alberta, N. BC and Saskatchewan the labour markets are soft (that is prerecession even). There's unemployment, hidden unemployment and too many low wage jobs. This would be fixed by tighter labour markets through timely immigration. I say you can set an annual top up for a city and this would test the reality of all the economic statistics, you don't have to rely on economists at Statistics Canada in Ottawa.

[EdwardRI]

Would you be as kind as to explain what you mean when you say "set an annual top up for a city"? I'm not familiar with that expression.

Thanks.

[Bruce_the_vii]

There's a terse explanation in the post above.

To be more articulate there are a few cities in Canada that are ahead of the others and will experience labour shortages in the next few years. You could have a special movement of immigrants to that city to top up the labour force level. The problem would be how to design this and administer it. What you could do is let in foreigners that landed a job offer in the city and let them in rather quickly as well. The Immigration Department already lets corporations do this so you would just accentuate that aspect of immigration. The top up would come inaddition to background immigration so it would maybe 2000 families a year to a place like Calgary so this seems managable. So instead of having an annual quota set in 1993 Canada would set the level per city per year and unemployment would be at a Goldilox level.

[Bruce_the_vii]

The Chairman of the federal Liberals Election Platform Committee, one Navdep Singh, writes me on Sept. 11 that my economic ideas are "intriguing" and he is circulating them amongst the platform develment team. So,good.

I sent him the brief I posted above. It's something of an alternate economic strategy for the nation.

(Moved from the "Economist?" thread)

[Bruce_the_vii]

So my ideas on immigration reform, I call them Brucenomics as they are basically a strategy for the national economy, are being considered by the Liberal Election Platform Committee. An election is in the air, the Liberals are short of a plan for the economy, and my ideas have been tested quietly and are a political sell. However my post garnered little response here. This is too bad as replies are typically pithy, if contrarian, and make one think. As I have to be prepared for all comers should the Liberals call me in the forum would be practice.

[ASLplease]

The Liberal plan: raise taxes
The CPC plan: free enterprise
The NDP plan: reduce service charges at ATMs
The Bloq plan: Fuck you, we just want out.
The Green plan: lets shut down all industry and replace it with recycling programs