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The irony is that it was industry (especially small business) freaking out about that low unemployment rate and the pressure it was putting on wages that led to
by cmrdporcupine 2y ago
The irony is that it was industry (especially small business) freaking out about that low unemployment rate and the pressure it was putting on wages that led to the bulk of Trudeau's demise.
They went crazy with the TFW program, LMIA, and immigration generally in order to reduce inflation. But this is not the kind of inflation that ordinary Canadians think of when we think of inflation -- grocery prices, etc. It's the inflation that business leaders freak out about: wage inflation.
And so the gov't acted, and increased the supply of skilled and unskilled labour, and here we are.
It's amusingly also the same inflation that led to Trudeau Sr. getting in a pile of trouble in the late 70s, too. In that case instead of immigration they tried the ill-fated "wage and price controls" legislation... which was... not popular.
- zahlman 2y agoIt's almost as if raising the minimum wage is reflected as wage inflation when you're already in a condition where a large fraction of workers are near the wage floor. Adding labour supply isn't going to do anything about that unless it's biased towards higher skill. (But honestly, I'd say a lot of these businesses deserve to fail if they can't afford to pay minimum wage workers.)
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoThis was the cause of the panic, though. In the 2021/2022 time-frame many businesses that would normally only pay the minimum wage, give irregular hours, and treat people pretty woefully were forced to pay well above minimum wage. There was quite a bit of public anxiety from businesses about labour shortage and the result.