yeahright... in the summer generaly there is more work because of tourism and road work and stuff....what really matters are jobs that last more than one season.
And a part time job will not cover the price of living..

Bo, didn't April occupy the same position in the calendar in 2009 as it does in 2010? If they compared say January 2009 to April 2010 then maybe your argument would hold water. Let's face it the economy is showing signs of recovery. And your right a fulltime ongoing job would be best, but, any job is better than no job.

Tree planters, they got off to an early start this year, about a month earlier than normal.

Tree planting jobs pay very well, not a normal part time job.

Plus a couple thousand whose ei just ran out.

Why bother reporting these statistics? Certainly not to provide people information about changes.

Some people simply can only believe the truths they create for themselves, not the truths others report on.

I think most of those people post on 250. :-)

National staitstical reporting site:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/labour-travail/lfs-epa/lfs-epa-eng.htm

- Employment gains in Ontario since July 2009 has grown by 109,000 (+1.7%). Unemployment rate is 8.8%

- Employment gains in Quebec, since July 2009, has grown by 91,000 (+2.4%). Unemployment rate is 7.9%

- Employment gains in British Columbia, since July 2009, has grown by 55,000 (+2.4%). Unemployment rate is 7.3%

- Employment in Alberta has not grown since July 2009. It is the only province with no employment growth since then. Unemployment rate is 7.4%

- Employment rate is lowest in Manitoba, with unemployment standing at 4.9%.

So if we turn that around, using the figures given, then nationally we're "Producing" 100% of what we "Consume", or TRADE to other countries in exchange for alternate things we'd sooner "Consume", with 91.2% of the workforce employed.

While in BC to "Produce" 100% of what we "Consume" it takes 92.7% employment to get it. Are we getting 'more' efficient, or 'less', than the country as a whole?

There is no evidence of which I'm aware that shows either this Nation or this Province has any shortage of 'Consumables'. The supermarket shelves are not bare. The car dealers lots not empty. The clothing stores without a stitch on their hangers. The gas pumps haven't run dry, and building supply dealers are hardly down to their last board, or case of nails.

In fact, we'd probably be hard pressed to find anything that we "Consume" which is permanently in short supply. Even if 'unemployment' numbers were way, way, higher than is currently the case. Otherwise there'd be no excuse for 'unemployment', would there? We'd get busy, and fill the shortage.

So it seems to me, that if that is the case, which it obviously is, we've long ago solved the "Production" problem.

We don't NEED to have 100% of our workforce working to "Produce" 100% of the needs and desires of our "Consumption".

But we haven't solved the "Distribution" problem. And what's worse, we haven't even recognised and acknowledged there IS a problem.

For if anyone who is now unemployed's continued actual "Production" cannot be of BENEFIT to himself and his fellow man, then how can his continued actual "Consumption" be a DETRIMENT to them either? For if it were of "actual" BENEFIT, wouldn't he still be employed?

The 'problem', as I said, is a "Distribution" problem, not a "Production" one And the agency of "Distribution" is 'money'.

"Some people simply can only believe the truths they create for themselves, not the truths others report on."

Well said.

Socredible, you use far too many unnecesary "quotes" in your posts. Highly distracting and takes away from whatever it is you're trying to say.

Socredible. Yes, we are producing or importing 100% of what we consume.

And yes, I have always agreed with you that we have a distribution of money problem which to me is obvious from the simple fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It takes money to live in our society. We do dole some of it out through various means such as insurance to the unemployed, welfare, free food distribution, etc.

I believe, however, that we actually do have a production problem as well and it is rather major. We are not producing the things we need to produce.

We are not fixing our infrastructure. We are not maintaining the things we have. In fact, it is so bad that we are not even taking inventory of those things that are deteriorating in any reasonable fashion. On top of that we are not establishing minimum standards for those things we have had and are disappearing on us.

The most obvious to everyone locally seems to be the annual complaints about poor roads. How about poor snow clearance? How about a downtown that is falling apart at the seams? Streets that do not get cleaned. Stuff that gets pumped into the air instead of collected and properly disposed of.

We produce and buy bigger cars. We produce and buy better personal communication equipment. We produce and buy more entertainment programs/products. We produce and buy superior typewriters (sorry, computers), we produce and use more airplanes and cruise ships. We hold and attend more national and international conventions. We produce and buy more and more generations of televisions. We produce and buy more exotic foods for home and eat more and more of them cooked by others for us.

Everyone has more things to add to that starting list, I am sure.

No, we will NEVER produce enough. It might seem like we do to some, but to others it will not.

We do have a big production problem. But it is totally different than the average person even realizes.

In a shorter version?

"I need my new LCD big screen, surround sound, HD, 3D ready TV. I need my Starbucks Latte. I need my diesel crew cab."

"You need to fix the roads. You need to clean the air. You need to give me my box stores where they want to build."

"I can't give you any more money because I need it to spend on stuff I want. You figure out how to do it. That's not my job!"

Yes, Gus, but how does anyone really know what anyone else really wants beyond their basic needs?

The three main basic needs being adequate food, clothing, and shelter. Without which none of us will survive very long.

Beyond those three tangibles, are three other needs which are more in the nature of intangibles, but none the less necessary for our long term survival ~ education (in the broadest sense possible), health-care, and personal security.

I don't believe we really have any problem providing EVERYONE in this country with those six needs. Physically, that is. And with a far fewer number of people employed than we have employed right now. And far beyond the minimal amount that would be called basic, too. Some countries obviously would have problems doing that, but we do not.

Even health-care, which has many modern procedures requiring specialist skills said to be in short supply, seems to have very little trouble delivering on those procedures once the incentives to deliver them are in place.

Proving, I believe, that most if not all our delivery problems in that field are ADMINISTRATION problems, rather than actual MEDICAL ones.

The fact, and it is an obvious fact, that some people want a new LCD big screen, surround sound, HD, 3D ready TV, a Starbucks Latte, or a diesel crew cab, only means that these things HAVE ALREADY BEEN made, or can readily be made, and are available for people to buy.

The idea that because people buy these things money is not then available to pay for other things, such as road repairs, cleaning the air, etc., even building more big box stores, can easily be shown to be a fallacy.

Just as the notion that the poor are poor because the rich are rich is another, similar, fallacy.

For either to be true the quantity of money would have to be absolutely fixed, as if by the laws of nature, or something. It isn't.

The quantity of money VARIES every time any Bank lends or spends, for any reason. That increases the supply of money.

And it also VARIES when loans from the Banks are repaid, or the Banks sell securities they have purchased. Which decreases the supply of money.

The system is creditary. Bank loans create deposits ~ the subsequent repayment of those loans cancels those deposits. Because it is dynamic, and loan maturities overlap constantly, it appears as if this is not the case. But it very much IS the case.

And while any given sum of money can circulate throughout the economy transferring any number of goods and services from person to person as it does, it can only LIQUIDATE ONE SET OF COSTS ~ those equal to itself.

If, for any one of a number of reasons, a sum of borrowed money that has been COSTED into some form of production, and with the addition of the final seller's profit will form the PRICE of that production, is returned to the Bank and cancelled BEFORE that production has been consumed, then there is going to be a disparity between goods coming onto the market with a PRICE attached to them, and the amount of MONEY still in existence to liquidate that price through the sale and consumption of those goods.

In fact, those goods can only then be sold at the cost of their making, if ANOTHER sum of money, (which has been COSTED into OTHER goods), is then issued by the Banks.

Each time this happens there is another set of COSTS created that can't then be liquidated, and remain as unpaid, and ultimately unrepayable, DEBT. (Until we have a collapse, and a consequent real poverty (in the midst of a physical plenty), to match the financial one.

At present that is exactly what happens. And we try to rectify the situation in a number of ways, some more perverse and bizarre than others.

All we really succeed in doing is making the overall situation worse. For we increase debt in its totality to try to distribute enough incomes in the present to fully liquidate the costs of the past ~ but because we're incresing DEBT to do this, and all debt is costed into some form of production somewhere, the incomes of the future have to be continually larger to try to fully liquidate the costs of the present. And so on. Only in their totality, those incomes are NOT.

They're falling in ratio to the costs of production in the economy as a whole.

We might say that if there were no advances in technology, if all costs were, as they once were in pre-industrial times, current labour costs, the system might have a chance in working. But who wants to go back to that? It negates all the very real progress we've made in releasing man from endless drudgery. But under the present financial set-up, as it is, we only succeed in putting man, (those who are still employed, that is), into greater drudgery. This is NOT the proper application of labour saving technology.

No "quotes" in that one, Mr. PG. Satisfied?

In a shorter version?

There's a disconnect between PRICES expressed in money and MONEY itself. There shouldn't be, but there is. Correct that, and the production problem you mention can easily be rectified. What is physically possible can ALWAYS be made financially possible.

Oh, don't be so touchy, Socred. You can bet I haven't been the first person to notice that about your writing.

So we have created jobs according to official statistics. But what is behind those statistics?

Do they omit those discouraged workers who know there is no work in their field?

Do they include as "employed" those who have lost their jobs and now call themselves "consultants" although they have no clients?

Then there is the quality of the jobs created. If a worker loses a well-paid job in a mill and takes a McJob in desperation, that is considered a wash. It isn't for the individual worker or his/her family.

I'm SummerSoul and this is just SummerSoul's opinion.

You're right, Mr. PG. You haven't been the first person to notice that.

I do recognize the debating technique, however, of someone criticising some minor point like that when they cannot refute the major one.

It's a favorite tactic of the advocates of full employment whenever it's pointed out to them that even with full employment the rate that Costs flowing into Prices is generated exceeds that at which earned Incomes are distributed.

In other words, even if everyone was working, they still can't collectively liquidate overall Costs through their collective Incomes. And a constant growth of unrepayable Debt is necessary (at present) to bridge the difference.

SummerSoul, surely you've heard the old saying, "Figures lie, and liars figure."

If anyone's determined to try to convince others of something 'statistically' they can always find selected statistics to back up their point.

And, just like you said, while the statistics show the displaced well paid mill-worker who now slings slop at McJob's in desperation is "a wash", as far as job numbers go, there sure is a difference to that individual, and his family, in terms of income.

A more accurate representation of the situation would be to show overall INCOMES as well as overall JOBS, so we could see whether those incomes per new job created vs. old job lost are remaining the same, on avarage, or falling.