Further to my earlier post on this topic, whether or not we are or will soon be experiencing labour and skills shortages is a question of critical importance to the development of sound public policy. Next week, we will get some new Statistics Canada data on job vacancies which will help support a more informed discussion.

Given projections of very weak economic growth and a real unemployment rate which is much higher than before the recession and still stands at over 10 per cent, it is hard to support the case that we face generalized labour shortages anytime soon.

Canada's population, we are frequently told, is rapidly aging. The big baby boomer cohort is headed out of the workforce, meaning that we face a future of very slow labour force growth and even possible shortages of workers. CIBC Economics has just gone so far as to argue that the Bank of Canada can afford to be more relaxed about unemployment due to demographic changes, which will lower the demand for jobs.

The Canadian Federation of Students, and most of the people we have spoken to, is at a loss over how the government thinks it can increase student and youth employment without direct state intervention into the economy via wage subsidies and/or direct student employment programs.

According to the OECD, if just left to the market, any increases in the minimum wage will result in an increase in the unemployment of youth and students. They suggest that without government support for youth/student/apprenticeship programs, youth unemployment will remain high and lead to a large range of long-term social ills.

As is well known, the youth unemployment rate remains high, and well above average. It stood at 14.1 per cent in November or more than double the unemployment rate of 6.3 per cent for persons aged 25 to 54, and 6.2 per cent for those aged 55 and over.

What is a little bit more surprising is that the youth unemployment rate, while down from the recession peak of over 15 per cent, has risen over the past year -- up by 0.5 percentage points -- while it has fallen -- by 0.3 per cent percentage points -- for those aged 25 and over.

Young people were hard hit by the recession, and have been mainly sitting on the sidelines during the recovery.

Further to my post on the Mowat report on EI, I looked up the most recent rates of unemployment for the 58 EI regions. In the current regionally differentiated system, which Mowat wants to replace with a single national system, these unemployment rates are those which determine the level of hours needed to qualify for benefits, as well as the duration of benefits.