Full Employment

cx zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxzxFull Employment is a proposed provincial government policy that aims at maintaining the unemployment levels at below 5% to below gradually work towards below 3%. At the time of this article, the unemployment rate for Alberta was 7.2%, about 182,500 unemployed. About 25,000 people constitute a 1% of labour force. At today's unemployment rate, we need 60,000 jobs to bring the rate to below 5% and 100,000 jobs to bring it below 3%. Dividing this on 40:40:20 ration between Edmonton, Calgary and the rest of Alberta the numbers will be for the 5% target:24,000 for Calgary, 24,000 for Edmonton and 12,000 for rest of Alberta. These 60,000 new jobs on a modified Minimum Wage of **$2,398.78** would cost approximately $3,500 per job per month. Which is $210 Million per month or $2.5 Billion per year.

## How it works

### Objective

An **entrant** to the job market should get a **preferred job** within 30 days of entry. During the **Waiting Period,** the entrant is provided an assured job and assured basic monthly sustenance income (ABMSI) of **$2,398.78** with time and resources to self-develop to upgrade or modify their skills.

### Mechanism

**Entrant Registration:** The program is operated by a newly incorporated Provincial Agency "Alberta Employment Agency" or simply called Employment Agency. Entrants register themselves with this agency. Any EI benefits will be transferred to this agency and only the ABMSI ($2,398.78) will be paid to the entrant every month till the entrant is out of the system.

**Employment:** Employment is for 3 days a week of up to 12 hours a day. Employment will be provided till the time entrant exits the system.

**Skills Upgrade:** Entrants are to have a career pathway planned and register themselves in an authorized upgrade program. SAIT, NAIT, Universities will be consulted as well as mandated to provide market-employable courses. Education institutes have to take up responsibility for the employability of students.

### Abuse Prevention

Abuse could be perpetrated by (1) Entrant, (2) Employer (3) Government.

**Employer Abuse:**
Entrant Abuse of System: There are two types of unemployed people (hereinafter called as the "entrant"), (1) New to the labour force, (2) Currently in the labor force. The idea here is that any entrant to the job market should get their preferred job within 30 days or less. In order to do this we are proposing two actions:

### Modify the skills to match demand

For e.g. an entrant has completed the Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with a sculpture specialization at the Alberta College of Arts and Design. There is a (1) Ideal Job, and (2) Preferred Job for this entrant based on education. It is not the government's job to help the entrant to get to his ideal job,

**Side note**: libertarians would say the government has no job at all getting jobs for people. They can do that when libertarians are in the government. The weak and the unfortunate has nothing other than the government to help them, if not for God, faith, friends, and family
Coming back to the example, it is not the government's job to help the entrant with the ideal job, but to help to get a preferred job. This is being done in the self-interest of the government and society. The education and the skills go wasted.

**Side note**: It could be argued that why should the government help with even a preferred job? The individual made a choice and if the individual could not get a job in his choice then it is their problem. We will come to that and we will approach that issue in two ways.
**Definition of Preferred Job**: A Fine arts degree student with a major in sculpture would rather prefer to work in an advertisement studio or designing marketing rather than working as a line cook in a restaurant, though that job may be paying more money.

**Explanation:** In a perfect world, ideally, an entrant should get a job the same day as he enters the market. Currently, there is some data on what the average number of days (hereinafter called the waiting period) before an entrant gets a job. Currently, the anecdotal data says about 20 weeks or say 5 months. It is also common knowledge that if the candidate is flexible the waiting period is even lesser to maybe 2 to 4 weeks. But job seekers do not want to try for "anything" though they sometimes do as time proceeds and the desperation starts. They do not want to try for "anything" for two reasons (1) Waste of time applying for such jobs since the chance of getting those jobs is very low due to a large number of applicants. (2) Assuming they got the job they will always be trying to jump out and look for their preferred job. The only reason they would try and do it for some time is for the "survival money". A perfect example is a dishwasher job in a restaurant that is self-explanatory. A restaurant employer knows how difficult it is to retain a dishwasher. Maybe about 5% of their time is spent on recruitment every month. Which is a societal wastage for the employer and for the employee who came in out of desperation.

## References

1. ↑ https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/b754ca87-2e9b-4a80-b7b2-2cfef8e53ff4/resource/8d9020a0-b04b-4bc9-becf-594b7c4091d1/download/lbr-public-package-2019-11.pdf
2. ↑ https://www.auarts.ca/degrees-and-programs/bachelors-degrees
3. ↑ https://www.monster.ca/career-advice/article/unemployment-timeframe-in-canada-ca