I wanted to draw futureworkers attention to an article in the Globe and Mail, Monday, November 16th."Low unemployment has hidden cause". It indicates that just over 65 percent of the potential labor force (Canadians 15 and over) was working or looking for work in October, while in 1990 this percentage was 67.9%. This drop in participation rate was broken down by age groups: aged 25-54---9% of this drop in participation rate aged over 55---27% of this drop in participation rate aged 15-24---64% of this drop in participation rate Thus it is falling most heavily on youth who had a participation rate of 70% in 1989 , but last year had a rate of 61% (and this includes any type of part-time job). We discussed this some time ago about the "missing workers" in the U.S., many of whom were older "discouraged" "downsized" workers, but the implications here bring this back to some of the original discussions about the changing nature of work and problems of youth employment that Keith Hudson referred to. I wonder how these Canadian statistics compare internationally, and what realistic steps are being taken to counteract this trend? Also, I found this article to be going against the general media reporting that seems to be saying that our unemployment problems are solved or at least is not seriously evaluating the significance of the participation rate drop. Melanie Toronto
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