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Originally Posted by GGG
I’m arguing businesses will take profit rather than hire new workers given replacement workers exist and the uncertain market means minimizing costs is a primary driver right now. I agree once the job market tightens and there isn’t a surplus of workers that what you suggest will happen.
I’ve been disappointed in the analysis around youth unemployment. It hasn’t seem to have gone beyond comparing the percentages. To really compare you need to pull out the general increase in youth unemployment North America wide and normalize it.
Then you need to try to parse the recession from the wage increase by comparing say Seattle data to Calgary Data. Then we could have a good discussion around cause.
Right now we have high youth unemployment which is caused by some combination of high minimum wage, recession, general reduction in youth interest in employment or even other factors like the TFW program. It’s tough to provide a solution when the cause isn’t well defined.
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All of this is fair and good. We already know that an increased minimum wage can have a negative effect on youth employment. We already know youth employment in Alberta is at an unprecedented level.
This is an easy step to take, with a likely positive impact, that doesn't require further study.