The most direct mechanism by which labour productivity affects living standards is through real wages, that is, wages adjusted to reflect the cost of living. Between 1980 and 2005, the median real earnings of Canadians workers stagnated, while labour productivity rose 37 per cent. This report...

The apprenticeship system is generally associated with the construction industry. However, the manufacturing industry actually employs a greater amount of persons in apprenticeable occupations than construction. With the rise in value of the Canadian dollar and increased international...

This report provides an assessment of human capital development in British Columbia. The province's performance is above average according to the majority of the indicators we analyze, relative to both the rest of Canada and other OECD countries. However, this does not mean that there is no room...

This report presents estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for a representative sample of Canadian households in 1999 and 2005. The results indicate that there was only modest growth in the average Canadian household’s total command over economic resources in...

Canada's labour productivity performance has been abysmal since 2000, both relative to our historical experience and to that in the United States. In theory, a deterioration of the health status of Canadian workers could explain slower productivity growth. However, the evidence does not support...

This report has two aims. The first is to provide a descriptive overview of the services offered by private sector electronic labour exchanges (ELEs) in Canada. The second is to assess those services in terms of their likely effects on labour market matching, their accessibility, and the degree...

This report provides a critical examination of the international literature on the role and impact of labour market information (LMI). The purpose of this exercise is to assess the current state of knowledge on the role and impact of LMI and to identify gaps in our knowledge. The report finds...

This report provides a critical assessment of recent Canadian efforts to measure and evaluate the impacts of labour market information (LMI). The purpose of this exercise is to provide a summary of the current state of knowledge on the role and impact of LMI in Canada, to assess the contribution...

A major development in the Canadian labour market in the 1990s has been the decline in labour force participation. This issue of Canadian Business Economics consists of a symposium of articles that explore this issue. The idea for this symposium came out of a December 1997 workshop on labour...