http://www.vancouversun.com/records+biggest+increase+year+over+year+recipients/1324021/story.html
Summary
According to a Statistics Canada survey that came out on Tuesday, BC has the country’s greatest increase in recipients receiving Employment Insurance (EI) in December. All provinces rose in the amount of regular EI recipients during the month of December. With the highest increase, BC was at 33.2%, with Alberta at 30.3% and Ontario at 29.6%. The actual number of increase of Canadians receiving EI was 79,100 between December of 2007 and 2008, which is a 16.6% increase. Breaking it down to gender, the percentage of men receiving EI had an increase of 21.7% and for women it was an increase of 8.6%. Since the start of the economic crisis at the end of 2008, the numbers are steadily rising. In January, 35,000 jobs were lost, which puts British Columbia’s unemployment rate at 6.1%.
Connection
As learned in chapter 5, the three ways of analyzing a country's economy are: unemployment, inflation, and the level of business activity. Obviously this article relates to the 1st factor which is unemployment. Seeing how high the unemployment rate in Canada is, it just confirms how our country isn't doing too well. Even though it may not seem like it, but citizens that are unemployed actually have an affect on those who are employed. When workers lose their job, they also lose their ability to pay taxes. When a lot of jobless people aren't able to pay taxes, the burden is added onto those who are able to pay. With the added taxes that covers the people who can not pay, the working people also has to pay additional tax that will support those the unemployed until they find a job.
Reflection
After reading this article, I started thinking. There are so many factors that can lead to unemployment, yet we’re in the middle of an economic crisis. Could the rise in numbers on EI recipients totally be blamed on that factor? I understand that with the global turndown, of course our country would be affected. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in every economic sector have been lost mainly due to this problem. Especially at this time, I would definitely not like to be in the position of someone without a job. I've heard stories from my relatives. The companies that they work for are all thinking of or if they haven't already done so to cut back on employees. This news of possible lay-off has gotten all the employees worried and concerned. I am very fortunate to be working at a company where they have not initiated any desire to laying off workers.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Chapter 4: OMERS posts $8-billion loss for 2008
http://www.theprovince.com/business/fp/OMERS+posts+billion+loss+2008/1320127/story.html
Summary
OMERS Administration Corporation (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), which is one of Canada’s biggest pension funds, has reported that in 2008, more than $8-billion was loss due to the global economic crisis. Comparing this year’s $8-billion net investment loss to last year’s profit of $3.9-billion, there is a significant difference. The pension fund has more than $52-billion and has an effect on around 390,000 Ontario municipal employees, such as police, firefighters, and transit workers. In 2008, the pension fund had a negative 15.3% rate of return whereas in 2007, its return rate was 8.7%.
Connection
This article relates to the sources of government revenue in which we learned in chapter 4. A lot of the government’s spending comes from taxes imposed on the citizens. As for OMERS, 70% comes from investments and the remaining 30% is directly from employee and employer contributions. But because of the global economic turndown, the 70% funding from investments have decreased drastically. This will have a direct effect on the budgeting of these pension plans. Even though OMERS does not tie in with the government’s spending, it is a group that supports employees that work/worked government jobs. OMERS is beneficial to municipal workers and their net loss in their investments affect them directly.
Reflection
Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) may not have any effect on me. In a sense, it does relate to me. As an employee of the Vancouver Public Library, if there was an OMERS for our city, I would not be very happy with what’s going on currently for OMERS. Since employees have CPP deducted from their income, it only sounds fair if they receive what they anticipated. But I understand that not everything in life is going to work the way it was set out to. The economy going bad was definitely not something that anyone could have controlled. Its just sad to hear that the pension fund had decrease over 10% compared to last year. Especially since inflation is going up, with the pension fund decreasing, it would be very hard for the senior citizens to buy what little they can.
Summary
OMERS Administration Corporation (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), which is one of Canada’s biggest pension funds, has reported that in 2008, more than $8-billion was loss due to the global economic crisis. Comparing this year’s $8-billion net investment loss to last year’s profit of $3.9-billion, there is a significant difference. The pension fund has more than $52-billion and has an effect on around 390,000 Ontario municipal employees, such as police, firefighters, and transit workers. In 2008, the pension fund had a negative 15.3% rate of return whereas in 2007, its return rate was 8.7%.
Connection
This article relates to the sources of government revenue in which we learned in chapter 4. A lot of the government’s spending comes from taxes imposed on the citizens. As for OMERS, 70% comes from investments and the remaining 30% is directly from employee and employer contributions. But because of the global economic turndown, the 70% funding from investments have decreased drastically. This will have a direct effect on the budgeting of these pension plans. Even though OMERS does not tie in with the government’s spending, it is a group that supports employees that work/worked government jobs. OMERS is beneficial to municipal workers and their net loss in their investments affect them directly.
Reflection
Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) may not have any effect on me. In a sense, it does relate to me. As an employee of the Vancouver Public Library, if there was an OMERS for our city, I would not be very happy with what’s going on currently for OMERS. Since employees have CPP deducted from their income, it only sounds fair if they receive what they anticipated. But I understand that not everything in life is going to work the way it was set out to. The economy going bad was definitely not something that anyone could have controlled. Its just sad to hear that the pension fund had decrease over 10% compared to last year. Especially since inflation is going up, with the pension fund decreasing, it would be very hard for the senior citizens to buy what little they can.
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