I thank you for your question. Clearly, the recession has a major effect on the manufacturing sector in terms of production as well as job numbers.
There has been a lot of research done, not only in Canada but in other countries, on when you have these difficult recessions. I think it's fair to say that at least on a world basis this is the most difficult recession we've had since the Great Depression. It has had a hard impact on Canadians, unfortunately, and particularly in this recession on our manufacturing sector, where you see jobs down by almost 10%.
That has an impact when you have capacity utilization rates in the industrial sector that are less than 70%. You're not working anywhere near capacity for a period of time. That's one of the reasons why our output gap is so deep. It will take a number of years--until 2013--for it to come back. Because it will take time.
In terms of bringing back those jobs and the quality of jobs, that will be a struggle. Even in most projections of the economists, you will not see the unemployment rate come down to a structural level of 6% to 6.5% beyond the medium term. That is not necessarily very abnormal for recessionary experiences.
We are looking at premium rate increases under the employment insurance program. In our assumptions, as noted in our study, we assume that after the first two years there will be increases of 15¢ for each year, so we're really talking about a 60¢ increase out to 2014. That will amount to roughly $700 per job, which is significant. That is simply the way the legislation has been written right now, but it is something to be mindful of as well.