The Canadian job market has become increasingly polarized over the last 30 years, creating a “J-shaped economy” where the share of high-skilled jobs have increased, low-skilled jobs have remained flat, and mid-skilled jobs are continuously declining, according to a new report published by the Public Policy Forum.
Written by Sosina Bezu, an economist from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and Sean Speer, a Public Policy Forum Fellow (and The Hub’s editor at large), this report examines this trend of job polarization with an eye towards helping policy makers and the public better understand its causes and effects and how they impact actual workers.
What is to be done about this vanishing middle and the negative economic and social consequences their disappearance entails? Recommendations for enhanced public policy include:
- finding ways of furthering the education and training of low-skilled workers;
- modernizing labour market standards to reflect new and emerging forms of employment;
- closing the gap between people’s credentials and skills and the market’s recognition of them;
- expanding childcare for working families.
“But one thing is clear,” they conclude. “The changes to the distribution of jobs represent a major economic, political and social development as there is less demand for the mid-skilled worker in the modern economy.” This, they warn, creates an unequal society. “And an unequal society can create unrest – as it has in the U.S., where it seems to have contributed to the rise of political populism.”
