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Notes 262
h/2000/00–07/00–07–07/d000707a.htm. Elsewhere in the OECD, however, unemployment
figures are not as sanguine and pose a continuing cause for concern.
3 This is not to say, however, that macroeconomic policy writ large is unimportant in reducing
unemployment. Rather, prudent growth encouraging fiscal and monetary policy should be
considered a foundational requirement for embarking upon microeconomically-oriented
employment strategies.
4 Andrew Bernstein and Michael Trebilcock, “Labour market training & retraining,” Working
Paper No.4 (Toronto: Center for the Study of State & Market, University of Toronto, 1996),
p. 23.
5 For an evaluation of many recent ALMPs among OECD countries see Martin, supra note 1.
For an earlier and in some ways more thorough analysis, see Robert G. Fay, “Enhancing the
effectiveness of active labour market policies: evidence from programme evaluations in
OECD countries,” Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Paper No. 18 (Paris: OECD,
1996). See also Bernstein and Trebilcock, ibid.
6 Morley Gunderson, “Training in Canada: progress and problems,” in Barrie O. Pettman (ed)
Government Involvement in Training (Bradford: MCB Publications Limited, 1978), p. 127.
7 Morley Gunderson, “Active labour market adjustment policies: what we know and don’t
know,” report to the Panel on the Role of Government in Ontario (2003), p. 16, available at
http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/investing/reports/rp33.pdf.
8 Ibid., p. 15.
9 Ibid., p. 8.
10 Ibid., p. 9.
11 There are others, most notably seasonal unemployment in sectors such as fishing and
construction.
12 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The OECD Jobs Study: Facts,
Analysis, Strategies (Paris: OECD, 1994) p. 9.
13 Ibid., Table 1. Long-term unemployment, which is usually attributable to structural features,
as of 1994 constituted 42.2 percent of the unemployment rate in the European Union,
compared with a comparably minor 11.2 percent in Canada and the United States.
14 See Richard B.Freeman, “Are your wages set in Beijing?,” The Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 9(3) (1995), p. 18. Freeman claims that real wages in the US for males with 12
years of education dropped 20 percent in real terms between 1979 and 1993. For further
evidence of the erosion of real wages over the same period of time in the US see William
Cline, Trade and Income Distribution (Washington, DC: Institute for International
Economics, 1997), p. 23. See also Philippe Aghion and Jeffry G.Williamson, Growth,
Inequality and Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 36.
15 See US Department of Labour Council of Economic Advisors, 20 Million Jobs: January
1993 to November 1999 (December 3, 1999), available at:
http://clinton4.nara.gov/media/pdf/20miljobs.pdf. According to the report at page 6, “The
resumption in real earnings growth since 1996 has been especially evident among low-wage
workers […and] compared with the 1980s expansion, the growth in earnings has been much
more evenly distributed.”
16 Cline, supra note 14, pp. 32–3.
17 OECD, supra note 12, Table 1. In 1993, the OECD average for youth unemployment stood
at 15.1 percent (vs. aggregate of 7.8 percent); in Canada, the youth unemployment level was
roughly 17.8 percent.
18 Jeffrey G.Reitz, “Occupational dimensions of immigrant credential assessment,” in Charles
Beach, Alan Green and Jeffrey G.Reitz (eds) Canadian Immigration Policy for the 21st
Century (Kingston, Ontario: Jun Deutsch, 2003).
19 In practice, however, the split between firm-specific and general human capital is very
blurred. One aspect of training may apply only to the operation of a very specialised
machine, for instance. This is prima facie a firm-specific investment. However, such a skill