The statistical observation that small firms have created the majority of new jobs during the 1980s has had a tremendous influence on public policy. Governmentshave looked to the small firm sector for employment growth, and have promoted policies to augment this expansion. However, recent...

This paper uses job turnover data to compare how job creation, job destruction and net job change differ for small and large establishments in the Canadian manufacturing sector. It uses several different techniques to correct for the regression-to-the-mean problem that, it has been suggested,...

There has been for some time substantial concern regarding the loss of young people in rural communities. There is a sense that most rural communities offer few opportunities for their younger people, requiring them to leave for urban communities, most likely not to return. While there is a...

This paper highlights recent developments in self-employment in Canada and explores its relationship to unemployment/full-time paid-employment. There are now two and a half million Canadians working at their own businesses, amounting to 16.2% of the total labour force or accounting for 17.8% of...

Canadians are increasingly concerned about rising job instability. Job instability can take various forms and can be measured in numerous ways. As part of a comprehensive research effort to examine job instability, this paper uses the Longitudinal Worker File (LWF) on the separations of Canadian...

This paper outlines the structure of payroll taxes and documents evidence on the level, growth and role of each component over the last three decades for Canada and for each province. Levied by both the federal and provincial governments, payroll taxes in Canada include four major components: i)...

This study uses census data to focus on low-income among immigrants, and asks a number of questions: (1) have low-income rates increased among successive cohorts of entering immigrants, both in absolute terms and relative to the Canadian born (they have), (2) is this increase due to changes in...

Canadians are increasingly concerned about permanent layoffs, as many feel job instability and the possibility of job loss has increased in the 1990s. Governments, confronted with a large number of permanent layoffs each year, need to know how to respond to improve labour adjustment and the...

This paper reviews the increase in the earnings gap between immigrants and Canadian-born over the past two decades, and the current explanations of this labour market deterioration among recent immigrants in particular. The paper also outlines the rising gap in low-income rates between...

The past 25 years has seen a more or less continuous deterioration in the economic outcomes for immigrants entering Canada. However, economic outcomes for second-generation Canadians (children of immigrants) are more positive, and in spite of the economic difficulties, after four years in Canada...