[Bruce_the_vii]

……………………Unemployment in the City of Toronto

I calculate the real unemployment in the City of Toronto, the 416, is 22.7% as of July, 2009.

The arithmetic is based on the higher number of people working in full employment situations, where people that want a job have rejoined the labour force. I use Calgary in 2008 as reference.

The number of people in the labour force in Calgary in 2008 was 77.1% of adults. Meanwhile the number of people working in Metro in July, 2009 was 59.1%. The difference is taken and prorated to the labour force level of 77.1% to arrive at a raw unemployment figure. Calgary has less older people who don’t work so I subtract 3.9%. I then add in 2.3% because Statistics Canada R7 indicates that’s the effective unemployment in “involuntary part time” work. I also add 1% for involuntary part time self-employed, an analogy to involuntary part time. This is a guestimate. Voila 22.7%. It might actually be slightly higher, there’s room for improvement in Calgary as the labour force level is sensitive to unemployment and takes time to adjust.

[ASLplease]

geez Bruce, I knew this thread was yours before I read it.

[Bruce_the_vii]

I'm sort of a classical one topic poster. However, the real unemployment figure is kind of a hole in the science of economics and tells you things about how the world works.

[ASLplease]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

I'm sort of a classical one topic poster. However, the real unemployment figure is kind of a hole in the science of economics and tells you things about how the world works.

Careful, my friend. A comment like that in a thread about Toronto might propagate the stereotype of Torontonians thinking they are the centre of the universe.

[Bruce_the_vii]

That was misleading of me. In fact the this real unemployment fact is a problem throughout the West. It shows you the worlds economists are oblivoius to some of the main data collected, that immigration is based on basically one statistic - the official unemployment figure and that politicians are dysfunctional and don't communicate with one an other or anyone. Unemployment is a huge and central problem and it shows you these things.

[martin14]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

……………………Unemployment in the City of Toronto

I calculate the real unemployment in the City of Toronto, the 416, is 22.7% as of July, 2009.

The arithmetic is based on the higher number of people working in full employment situations, where people that want a job have rejoined the labour force. I use Calgary in 2008 as reference.

The number of people in the labour force in Calgary in 2008 was 77.1% of adults. Meanwhile the number of people working in Metro in July, 2009 was 59.1%. The difference is taken and prorated to the labour force level of 77.1% to arrive at a raw unemployment figure. Calgary has less older people who don’t work so I subtract 3.9%. I then add in 2.3% because Statistics Canada R7 indicates that’s the effective unemployment in “involuntary part time” work. I also add 1% for involuntary part time self-employed, an analogy to involuntary part time. This is a guestimate. Voila 22.7%. It might actually be slightly higher, there’s room for improvement in Calgary as the labour force level is sensitive to unemployment and takes time to adjust.

Maybe subtract a point for the 'voluntarily unemployed', they do exist.. 21.7

Then what about people who work in the black economy,
working but not recorded anywhere.. couple points there too

[Bruce_the_vii]

The number of adults in the labour force in Calgary is 77.1% such that 22.9% of adults aren't interested in work. However, people that are voluntarily unemployed, but would work, are really unemployed. That's essentially what I'm talking about here.

There is an underground economy, I'm told it's very large in places like Greece. However it'd be over and above the Calgary statistic in Canada so you can still use the Calgary statistic (or all Alberta as an alternative) for the calculation.

Getting people back to work is a way of generating more government tax revenues and getting the government deficits down. If you immigrate the workers you get more additional government costs, such as educating their children at publice school.

Thanks for the response.

[martin14]

Voluntary unemployed = no job, on the records, not looking and will not accept work.

Your unwillingness to factor in a black economy shows your own bias
in preparing figures.

[Bruce_the_vii]

I'm not biased, just lazy. I don't think about the blackmarket except when I need a plumber.

[ASLplease]

in places like rural Alberta, I am sure there is a labour force that isn't officially logged, yet, i wouldnt call it black market.

guys that are hired to do chores on a dairy farm, pig farm etc, are seldom put on payroll. they receive cheques not paycheques. they are hard workers, yet hav
e have no desire to join the city folks.

[Bruce_the_vii]

I've wondered how the farm economy works, everyone in the family helping out - even twelve year olds. I don't have much of an idea.

[Bruce_the_vii]

The unemployment in Toronto maybe above 22.7% while at the same time the number of people working for less than $12 an hour is 20% (custom run of Statistics Canada data). The sum is 42.6%. In addition many people are insecurely employed, have limited skills to sell, so the jobs problem is more than half the population. If you factor in people are concerned about friends and family it becomes everyone. So that's the politics of exploitive wages. This is a seed statistic, from which many implications arise.

[Lemmy]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

I've wondered how the farm economy works, everyone in the family helping out - even twelve year olds. I don't have much of an idea.

There have been lots of studies, particulary on Female Labour Force Participation Rates on farms, historically. There has been a lot of work done using the Canadian census, particularly the 1871 census (because it's a lot cleaner than the others in the early post-Confederation period). Most studies conclude that farm wives and children are fully employed in the farm business. Kris Inwood at the University of Guelph has done a fair bit of work on this subject.

[Choban]

ASLplease wrote:

in places like rural Alberta, I am sure there is a labour force that isn't officially logged, yet, i wouldnt call it black market.

guys that are hired to do chores on a dairy farm, pig farm etc, are seldom put on payroll. they receive cheques not paycheques. they are hard workers, yet hav
e have no desire to join the city folks.

Dayworkser and the guys from Cash Corner who just want to make enought for the next bottle should be in here as well.
Did Bruce take self-Employed or entreprenuers into accout as well?

[Bruce_the_vii]

The self-employed and entrepreneurs are about 16% of the employed. They are a large section of the economy. However Statistics Canada doesn't know much about them. Many of them are self-employed on the side or part time self employed. About half the self employed report they make less than $23,000. In any event the bias in the data would be similar in full employment situations as it would be in the rest of the country so it'd be a wash statistically.

Something like day workers is hard to track down as well. A day worker with an agency might consider him or her self as unemployed. It all depends what they say in the telephone survey. In recent years businesses have come to rely on day workers and it is now a multi billion dollar business. However the bias in the data would be in both the full employment reference situation (Calgary) and in the local data (Toronot) and be a wash again.

Thanks for the response, those are fine points.