In our pre-budget Reality Check, we noted that a recession would lead to upwards pressure on social assistance expenditures. The 2009 Budget notes that every 1% increase in the temporary assistance caseload increases expenditures by $3.5 million (and $7 million for the disability caseload). During a major recession it would not be unrealistic to project [...]
Entries Tagged as 'unemployment'
Social assistance caseload way up
March 15th, 2009 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance
Tags: recession·unemployment·welfare
BC unemployment rate surges to 6.7% (updated)
March 13th, 2009 · Marc Lee · 1 Comment · BC Election 2009, Economy, Employment & labour
The hurt is on. After jumping to 6.1% in January, the ranks of BC’s unemployed swelled by 14,200 in February, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.7%, its highest level in five years. Given that February is the shortest month of the year, one can only imagine how bad things would have gotten had it been [...]
Tags: unemployment
Axing the Forest Service: The Cuts Continue
February 27th, 2009 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability
Well it looks like they’re getting ready to wield the axe yet again at the Ministry of Forests, and that the latest victims will join a long list of their sisters and brothers whose jobs were to protect the public interest and ensure that our publicly owned forests were responsibly managed. In its latest annual [...]
"The (not so) slow de-industrialization of the province"
February 26th, 2009 · Geoff Mann · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Employment & labour, Environment, resources & sustainability
Yesterday, Catalyst Paper announced the closure of the Crofton kraft pulp mill, a week after shutting the doors at its 350-employee mill in Campbell River and “restructuring” (laying off 127 workers) at its Powell River facility. That’s 850 job losses in basically one shot. It is not the first shot, either, and it definitely won’t [...]
Tags: BC Federation of Labour·Campbell River·Catalyst Paper·forestry·unemployment
It’s about jobs
February 13th, 2009 · Karen Cooling · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability
Next week the provincial government releases their budget and I am looking for something, anything at all, for forest workers.Now I hate to be a total whiner, but since 2001, BC has lost 65 sawmills, four pulp mills and about 20,000 jobs in the forest industry. With the spin-off effect of about 1 to 3, [...]
Tags: budget·EI·forestry·unemployment
