NDP MP Peggy Nash said forcing well-trained workers into low-skilled jobs risks exacerbating Canada’s skills shortage.
“It is a colossal waste of skills if we have people who are trained as computer engineers or teachers or nurses or electricians who are working in retail, Tim Hortons or picking fruit in the agricultural sector because it means they may not be available when a job in their field comes open,” she said.
Dr. Gray dismissed the NDP’s arguments, noting that skilled workers are more likely to move rather than abandon their careers by accepting a low-paying job.
“That just doesn’t make any sense at all,” he said. “If you take an engineer and make them work at Tim Hortons, that engineer will likely move to another part of the country, to go someplace where his or her skills are better remunerated.”
Cons just don't get it. I know, that's obvious in all areas, but this is unbelievably short-sighted. As an engineer, John Doe (we'll call him male because that's unfortunately statistically most likely) probably had enough money to buy a house with a hefty mortgage. He may have a spouse who also has a career, maybe in something not particularly easy to get a job in. If John has to move to another area of the country to get a job as an engineer, he's likely not going to do it, because he either will lose everything and more in his house (tanking his credit) or because his spouse can't get a job elsewhere. One of them will end up at the shit job, leaving their career and as Nash said, "exacerbating Canada's skills shortage". And moving is EXPENSIVE. It costs a LOT of money to up and move accross the country. It cost me a couple of thousand doing it on the cheap, from a one bedroom apartment, with no moving company, 15 years ago. So just how is someone who is recently unemployed supposed to pull this off, especially if he's been informed that he gets no EI because he should be working at Tim Hortons?
Dr. Gray seems to be one of those old assholes who thinks that families are made of one skilled worker and one stay-at-home-Mom who might take a part time job somewhere to shore up the family finances. ASSHAT.
And what really pisses me off about this is that EI is supposed to be insurance. We pay for it. And they make it like anyone who collects it is a bum, sucking on the government teat. No. That's not your money to play with, dear government, that's ours to use when we're out of work. Not as you see fit, dear Big Brother. As we do.
