showing how, on average, inflation abruptly began running twice as high as median wage increases .
Thus we’re seeing renewed labour agitation, especially for the 400,000 workers in B.C.’s mostly unionized public sector. Employees of the province, plus teachers, health-care workers, university faculty and staff and municipal employees are primed for battle. For the first time the biggest age cohort in B.C. now consists of the 957,000 people who are 65 and older .Article content
In health care, burnt-out nurses and others are quitting. Many employers are now desperate for staff, particularly in the low-paying hospitality and service sector. The problem with Ottawa’s approach to migration policy, Green adds, is its failure to co-ordinate with training programs. When the federal government brings in foreign nationals to fill a shortage in a sector, he says it discourages those already here from shifting to that line of work.Article content