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If we apply these figures of 38% and 6.2% to the numbers in Table 1 above, we get:-
Not in the Labour Force - who could be working if allowed = 0.38 X 8.212 million = 3.12 million
Plus (Official) Unemployed = 1.28 million
Employed who in
fact are under-employed =
0.062 X 15.7 million = 0.97 million
TOTAL CURRENTLY UNEMPLOYED OR UNDER-EMPLOYED =
5.37 million
The true state of affairs is now obvious.
Apart from the social consequences for the people involved, which most people know about (poverty, children in poverty, loss of self-esteem, pejorative and ill-qualified discrimination (so-called lazy, incompetent, ..too old to be any use to an employer..etc.), mental health problems, crime, etc., there is an additional problem which is customarily ignored by everybody, possibly by default.
This additional problem is the huge loss of revenue to the tax base - rather
obvious if we are actually talking about over 4 million completely unemployed
plus almost another 1 million who are merely under-employed (as
opposed to 1.28 million who are officially unemployed), as
compared to about 14.7 million who are employed full time at their level of
capability.
At the same time, we all know the incidence of complaints about personal
income taxes in Canada being too high - particularly in the High-Tech industry.
Everybody is also familiar with the lack of funds for essential services
provided by government i.e. health care, education, national defence etc. and -
more importantly since the terrorist actions in New York and Washington on
September 11th 2001 - funding for essential security services i.e.
RCMP, CSIS, Police, national defence (should I mention this again?) etc. . The
situation will rapidly get worse for at least the next 10 years, on account of
demographics, unless drastic corrective action is taken.
Fundamentally, the question is one of how to bring about a large
increase in tax revenues but without increasing tax rates. This is possible
only by increasing the number of persons who are tax revenue producers, which
means the number of persons working. Obviously, the more an individual earns - the
solution to the social problems he/she would otherwise have - the more tax
revenue he / she will produce for government, to pay for the essential services
just referred to. The foregoing obviously applies to immigrants in exactly the
same way as Canadian citizens, yet currently this is one of the groups which
has more problems finding work than most other people (pejorative
discrimination based on …lack on Canadian experience…,
non-recognition of qualifications, not being in a position to …know
somebody… etc.). Further, as everybody knows, increased immigration (to
about 300,000 persons per year) is seen as the solution to the projected work
force decline due to demographics - but this will not work if the immigrants
involved are not allowed, because of pejorative discrimination etc., to produce
a maximum of tax revenue based on paid work at their level of capabilities as
proven by their foreign qualifications and foreign work experience.
The first step - out of many - in solving the problem is to get
everybody to face the problem in real terms and to motivate them to think about
what part they could play in solving it. The first priority, out of many - obviously – is what measures are needed to
increase the numbers of full-time jobs available to equal the numbers of
persons unemployed in real terms.