Austerity’s Discontents

Hennessy's Index: A number is never just a number

Hennessy's Index

Hennessy's Index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world. For other months, visit: http://policyalternatives.ca/index

  • 75 million

    Number of youth, aged 15-24, who will be unemployed globally this year. That’s 6% more than in 2007. The global youth unemployment rate is 12.7%. (Source)
  • 46.4%

    The 2011 youth unemployment rate in Spain, up from 18.2% in 2007. (Source)
  • 13.9%

    Canada’s youth unemployment rate in April; nearly twice as high as the 7.3% rate for the overall labour market. (Source)
  • 20.4%

    Percentage of Canadian youth, ages 15-24, who fell into Statistics Canada’s broader category of unemployed, including discouraged, waiting or involuntarily part-time workers in April. (Source - in CANSIM, click add/remove, click ages 15-24, see category R8)
  • 6.4

    Number of unemployed Canadian workers for every reported job vacancy. (Source)
  • 40%

    Percentage of unemployed Canadians who are actually eligible for Employment Insurance. (Source)
  • 30%

    Pay cut the federal government expects Canadians to accept if they’ve been on Employment Insurance for 7-18 weeks (7 for ‘frequent’ claimants, 18 for ‘occasional’) and are offered a lower paying job than the one they had before. (Source)
  • 29,600

    Estimated number of full-time federal public sector job cuts by 2015, following three rounds of cutting.  (Source)
  • 100,000

    Number of total jobs the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates will be lost in Canada by 2014-15 as a result of federal and provincial government cutbacks. (Source)
  • 105,000

    Number of Ontario public (65,000) and private (40,000) sector jobs the Centre for Spatial Economics estimates will be lost in 2015 due to provincial government cutbacks. (Source)
  • 100+

    Number of days Quebec students took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands to protest austerity budget proposals that include raising tuition by 75% over several years. It has culminated in a controversial emergency law limiting public protest and a youth movement dubbed Printemps érable. (Source 1, 2, 3)
Author(s): 
June 1, 2012
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