I'm not a fan of the phrase, "economic meltdown". It’s an exaggeration of the negative aspects of the current economic climate and, in Chicken Little fashion, ignores all the positives.
Both employers and employees have the opportunity to benefit from the current state of things. While overall unemployment figures are rising due to workforce cutbacks in certain areas, the situation is not universally bleak.
From the perspective of employers, there is much to appreciate as a result of the present volatility. If nothing else, the slowing of the economy means that the so-called "labour shortage" must ease.
That means that, when job vacancies occur, there will be a better selection of candidates available. At least in western Canada, recent times have dictated (for many employers) that they hire almost any warm, and willing, body which happened to come through the door.
That state of things meant that the overall quality of an employer's workforce declined. Now that many people will be back in the job market, the number and quality of applicants for job vacancies should skyrocket.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that, just because the overall economy has slowed, there won’t be job openings. There are always vacancies, in bad times as well as in good. Employers restructure their operations, they weed out poorer performers, and employees choose to relocate.
Continuing in the same vein, employers may want to look at their current workforce and decide whether, during the tight job market, they hired employees who simply aren't performing. Now is the time to do some of that weeding out to take advantage of the sudden availability of better candidates.
While it is true that certain industries are suffering overall shrinkage in their workforce, the same cannot be said for all employers or all employment sectors. For example, the most recent information released by Statistics Canada indicates that employment in manufacturing grew in December, 2008 (over the prior month). The same is true for numerous other sectors of the economy, including part-time workers as a group. These statistics can be located on the Statistics Canada website at www.statcan.gc.ca.
Employers have good reason to view the next 18 to 24 months as a period of opportunity. The ones who do so will surely come out ahead of the Chicken Littles of the world.
Excerpts from Robert Smithson's "Employers and Employees Can Weather the Storm". Robert Smithson is a partner at Pushor Mitchell LLP in Kelowna practicing exclusively in the area of labour and employment law. For more information about his practice, log onto www.pushormitchell.com. If you have a labour or employment question for him to answer in a future "Legal Ease", email him at smithson@pushormitchell.com. This subject matter is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be relied upon as legal advice.
