Evidence of meeting #12 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cerb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Kwan.
Ms. Kwan, I think Ms. Chabot has already risen on a point of order. I will give her the floor and come back to you afterwards.
Ms. Chabot, do you have a point of order?
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Mr. Chair, we can hear very little if anything. Even when you speak, we cannot hear you.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I can barely hear you. I am not blaming the interpreters for this, but we are losing the interpretation regularly because of sound issues.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Chabot.
Ms. Kwan, was that a similar issue that you sought to raise?
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Mr. Chair, it's echoing at my end as well. There are obviously some technical difficulties.
Liberal
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
It was on the same point. It was echoing and I couldn't hear a thing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I'll go over to the interpretation folks or the tech folks. I see that Mr. Dong is wearing a headset, but the quality of the sound clearly isn't good. Is there anything we can do to resolve that?
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Maybe I'll move on to my next question. Maybe that will give us better luck.
The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Marie-France Lafleur
Mr. Chair, I've been told just to disconnect and reconnect the headset. Maybe that will help.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Keep talking, Mr. Dong. It sounds better to me, but I'm not the professional here.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
It's a little better on my end. I hope this doesn't take away from my questioning time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
To the interpretation and the technical folks, are we ready to roll or is there something more that needs to be done?
Okay, it looks like we're good, Mr. Dong. That won't cut into your time. You still have about three and a half minutes. Go ahead.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
I'll move to Dr. Schirle.
Dr. Schirle, thank you very much for those suggestions. You mentioned coming out of COVID toward recovery. I'm wondering about the students, who are a very important part of our labour force. Can you talk about some of the employment difficulties you know they're facing during COVID and then coming out of COVID?
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Thank you.
I suspect the interpreters are having challenges right now, but I will try to answer.
We know our that students are going to struggle going forward as they try to enter the labour market. If they try to enter the labour market during any normal recession, they take a huge cut to their potential earnings, which usually takes about 10 years to recover from.
This is a scenario where they do not get that first ideal job. They're looking at trying to get any job at all, and many of the jobs they could get right now will not contribute to their career path. That is a huge concern we have for the students who are graduating.
What we have seen at many universities is an increase in enrollments for the summer, so we suspect that many will choose to continue their education, building some further skills before going into the labour market. That seems to be a best-case scenario for them, but eventually they're going to have to get out there and try to compete. As many workplaces appear to be moving to more permanent work-from-home scenarios, it's not obvious how they're going to start the networking that also comes with starting their first career and learning in those jobs, so they have many challenges coming up.
For the students who are returning to school in the fall, my sense is that they're fairly well covered by the existing policies that have been brought forward, but I am very concerned about those who are graduating and trying to start their careers.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
You also mentioned that there are some jobs you anticipate will not come back post-COVID. Can you elaborate a bit more on them? What kinds of jobs are you talking about, and what do you think the government should do?
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Yesterday, we saw an excellent example. The folks at Shopify announced that many of their work-from-home arrangements are going to become permanent going forward. What that means is that they will not be using that office space anymore, and anyone who worked in that office as support staff will no longer have a job. There is no need to clean a floor when no one is in the office, so those are the types of jobs that will be the first to just disappear.
I am concerned that for things like hospitality, tourism or any kind of entertainment industry, it's going to be a very long time before those jobs come back. When we're thinking about several years down the road, we might as well think of those jobs as gone.
Also, many workplaces are completely reorganizing how they do things, often relying on more technology rather than humans to get things done, and as they make those investments, those workers will be displaced. Those investments can be productive overall. They can be beneficial to everyone, but those workers who are displaced are going to take the cost of that and are going to need retraining to find something new.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you. I'll try to get one more question in.
We hear a lot about CERB and student support programs providing a disincentive for people to return to work. What's your view on this, very quickly?
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
My general view is that a lot of this is perception more than reality. I remind people that when we look at the amount—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Dr. Schirle, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dong. We're past your time.
We now go to you, Ms. Chabot. You have six minutes.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will share my time with Ms. Gill.
I am speaking to you, Ms. Schirle.
I will first make a comment. In a few minutes, you provided us with an analysis of the current challenges related to workers—in the context of the crisis—and going forward. Much of your analysis is similar to mine, especially concerning women. They are on the front lines in the fight against the pandemic.
As you said, the jobs that could be lost in a number of areas are jobs held primarily by women. So I will put a broader question to you. We know that the government must conduct a gender-based analysis for each of its policies. Do you think the gender issue has been taken into account sufficiently in the government's economic response plan measures?
