print this page

By Kim Pollock

British Columbia is in the middle of a severe recession. You can see it in the unemployment numbers. In January 8.1 percent of BC workers were out of work. Despite a slight recent upward trend, 28,200 fewer British Columbians are working than in October 2008.

January’s slight employment gains were entirely due to more part-time jobs (+3.3 percent); full-time jobs actually fell for the fourth month in a row (–0.2 percent). Overall, full-time work’s share of total employment has been receding since mid-2009.

And the goods-producing sector – the industries that generate the best-paying jobs and most of BC’s export earnings – has suffered from an even longer employment drought. To date, the sector has lost roughly 62,300 jobs since July 2008. The forest sector began shedding jobs in 2007; up to the end of 2009, it lost over 32,200 jobs.

And unemployment is not our only serious economic problem. BC also faces an investment crisis, which also began well before the economic crisis. According to a 2008 report by the Centre for Studies in Living Standards, investment in public infrastructure as a share of GDP in British Columbia was only 92.4 per cent of the Canadian average over the period 2001-2007.

Worse, despite huge corporate tax cuts under Gordon Campbell, business investment has also slumped. From 2001 to 2007 investment intensity in BC averaged 12.9 per cent of GDP, 1.5 percent below the hardly-stellar Canadian average (14.4 per cent). We trailed Canada through the past decade in investment intensity in both buildings (6.7 per cent versus 6.9 per cent in Canada) and more importantly, machinery and equipment (6.2 per cent versus 7.5 per cent).

Productivity and investment matter because they drive job creation. In addition, in a recession it’s crucial not to undermine consumer spending – which represents over 60 percent of BC’s GDP. Cutting jobs and reducing family income is a recipe for an even deeper recession.

But you wouldn’t know any of this from last week’s BC budget, unfortunately. The Campbell government, which so far has done virtually nothing to stimulate the economy and create jobs, is now doing even less. The Liberals care more about the deficit. In fact, Campbell’s only job-creation plan was the Olympics. But now the party is over; any effect the games had on job creation is long over, too. Only the bills remain, which is why Campbell and Co. brought in an austerity budget in the middle of a severe recession.

Budgets are always “pay-now or pay later” propositions. Cutting into public spending and public-sector employment will push the economy even deeper into recession. Social problems like unemployment, poverty and homelessness will get a whole lot worse before they get better especially if we try to ignore them. And Campbell persists in imposing the hated sales tax, which will further erode consumer spending, employment and investment.

All told it’s a “we don’t care” budget. We don’t care about unemployment, job creation, investment, productivity… or people like you, say Campbell and finance minister Colin Hansen to working families. Nor do we care about homelessness, poverty or even BC’s worst child poverty in Canada six years running. And they won’t care until working and unemployed British Columbians stand up and demand better.

Kim Pollock is a United Steelworkers research representative, based in Burnaby.