2013-04. Weak job market

In today's Financial Post (available in the Peters Building) there is an article on the job market in Canada.
One way to get a handle of how the job market will perform is through a survey, The article reports the results of a Manpower Canada Survey. "Of the 1,900 Canadian firms polled,

• 74% said they expect to keep staffing at current levels between October and December [...]
• 8% plan to cut staff [...]
• 16% responded they plan to increase payrolls [...]
• 2% have yet to decide either way."

So there is a small upward trend but three quarters of the firms are not planning to do anything.

The VP of Manpower Canada says the reasons for poor labour market situation are:

• poor productivity
• a skills mismatch
• high labour costs

He suggests that the education system needs to be overhauled to ease the skills mismatch.
We will be talking about the labour market in chapter 7 and 8.