Canada’s provincial and territorial Federations of Labour presidents released a statement on August 5 that emphasizes that the fractious economic recovery must result in the creation of jobs if ordinary people are to share fairly in it.

A survey of Federations in the weeks prior to the August meeting in Winnipeg discovered that in June 2010 the real unemployment rate (a rate that includes discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers) was 10.6 per cent, a rate considerably higher than what was observed in October 2008 (eight per cent), at the beginning of the recession.

The Presidents’ statement recommends a number of short and longer term measures to ensure the creation of jobs:

• Increased funding for Labour Market Development Agreements and Labour Market Agreements with provisions for targeted funding for worker adjustment and programs focused on specific workers who have suffered significant job losses in the recession.
• The integration of literacy and basic skills training into all funded support >measures for both unemployed and currently employed workers;
• The extension, improvement, and reinstatement of support measures under Employment Insurance including the Extended Employment Insurance Training Initiative which was ended in May 2010.
• Effective programs such as work-sharing should be expanded to include
• learning components.

The way forward must also include an integration of training with industrial and economic strategies including:

• Renewal strategies in hard hit sectors including manufacturing and resource based industries, aimed at saving jobs and promoting successful restructuring.
• Investments to support cultural industries, environmental technologies, renewable energy and other promising industries of the future.
• Fundamental changes in unbalanced trade deals to reduce our manufacturing trade deficit
• Maintenance of a high level of public service and public sector jobs
• Promotion of higher value added processing of our resources

Manitoba Federation of Labour President Kevin Rebeck said the aftershocks of the economic crisis continue to be felt, even though many economists say they can find encouraging recovery signs as a result of large scale stimulus spending by the federal and provincial governments across Canada.

Rebeck said, “The fact of the matter is, there were 1,506,406 Canadians unemployed in May, compared to 1,137,400 in October 2008. The loss of over 300,000 jobs doesn’t include those people who are underemployed in jobs which provide only the barest ability to make ends meet.

“In the depths of the recession a full 10.3 per cent of the workforce was self-employed, people working for themselves with no employees, usually the most insecure and poorly paid form of employment.”

Canada’s labour movement remains dedicated to the goal of shaping an economic policy that results in a high wage, high productivity economy. The key to attaining a productive and secure future is galvanizing governments to work together with employers and workers to provide quality public education, the co-ordination of skills training and development with current and future labour market demand, ensuring equitable fair and easy access to training and skills development, co-ordinating training policies with industrial, investment, and trade policies, and timely and accessible labour market information.