I like Cecile Ouillet’s blog because I have learned that during the economic recession, reducing employer hours and laying people off may help to recover the economy in a long-term period. I agree with Cecile’s opinion that the recession helped to reconstruct companies and lower employment costs. As the essay indicates that “they could take a small severance package and collect unemployment or they could stay at truncated versions of their old jobs if they wished, but as part-timers with no benefits and no commissions”, which companies to pay less on labor salaries since there is no welfare such as house insurance anymore.

These strategies work well because companies can save a lot of money on labor costs. When there is an economic recession, prices of products may fall. Therefore, companies have to cut their costs as much as possible to remain the original profit level. However, the goal of reducing other costs, for example, raw material costs, and etc., are not easy to reach; Therefore, companies decide to recruit cheaper labor who are looking for part-time jobs. Cecile thought that labors have no incentive to work if they are part-timers because they get fewer stable jobs with lower salaries. Besides, these part-time jobs do not offer any benefit to them.

I think the idea of having too many part-time labors may lower production efficiencies. Well-trained labors bring companies more profits. It is necessary for some companies to provide customers with experienced employees. It said that, “her loyal clients return each season saying, ‘You know what I like. What have you got for me?’” If companies fire these old labors or turn them to part-timers, company owners will lose many customers. Just like what Cecile said, workers are important assets.

 

Reference：

Article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/08/20/how-corporate-america-used-great-recession-turn-good-jobs-bad-ones

Image: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/great-recession-part-time-jobs

Talking about First Nations, I have to mention that First Nations is a term of ethnicity that refers to the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Metis. First Nations are immigrants from middle Asia. They had been repressed by federal government since Canada was created in 1867.

In 1867, the amended Indian Act allowed the government to control most of those people’s life. In 1999, an agreement called the First Nations Land Management Act was signed by other Aboriginal. It allowed First Nations to reserve their own lands, while remaining other treaties unchanged in the Indian Act.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephan Harper apologized for the policy about “kill the Indian in the child”. The government had a plan to assimilate Indian, and Aboriginal children were forced to forget their language and culture. In 2010, the Indian Act was abolished at the annual meeting of Assembly of First Nations.

Nowadays, “Eligible former Indian Residential Schools students who qualified for the Common Experience Payment under the IRS Settlement Agreement may now qualify for a one time IRS Personal Credit for educational programs and services.” This is a big change for First Nations. People can go to Indian Residential Schools with a large amount of subsidies provided by the government. Unlike now, people would lose their Indian status as long as they earned a university degree in the past.

The more people who receive high-level education, the quicker the growth of technology will be, and the faster the economy development will be as well. Years ago, the Aboriginal survived on hunting buffalo and cutting trees, and they only knew how to sew clothes by using raw material like leaves. If they can receive education from school, they may know how to trade with others using currency instead of products. To some extent, it can accelerate the circulation of money.

Reference:

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/background-the-indian-act-1.1056988

http://www.afn.ca/index.php/en/news-media/current-issues/irs-personal-credit-available-to-eligible-IRS-students

 

“US unemployment rate hit a six-year low in September. The US unemployment rate dipped to 5.9% in September, a six-year low.”

 

“The rate fell from 6.1% in August and is the lowest recorded since July 2008”. “The US Federal Reserve has kept interest rates close to zero since the financial crisis in 2008.” In order to lower the US unemployment rate, the government should lower interest rates because that helps boost spending. As the US interest rates are low, people are not willing to save money in banks. Instead, they would like to spend more money on services and products. As a result, aggregate demands are higher because total expenditure increases. Higher demands lead to lower unemployment rate because we need more workers to produce more products to satisfy increasing demands, and then more people have salaries so that they spend more on consuming goods, which is a good flow that the government would like to see.

More jobs were created in the retail sector, health care, construction, leisure, and professional and business services. Fewer people are looking for jobs because they have got jobs they want. To some extent, high employment rate indicates that the economy is pretty good.

As the US interest rates are low, the currency exchange rates are also low. For example, US bonds can just be bought in U.S. dollars, and low interest rates make people do not want to buy US bonds. What’s more, people overseas will move towards higher yielding investments. As a result, the demands for U.S. dollars are lower and lower. Low demands for US dollars lead to low currency  exchange rates. Foreigners tend to buy more U.S. products because of lower price, and Americans will buy fewer imported products, which improves U.S. balance of trade.

Reference:

http://www.bbc.com/news /business-29479533