FORMÉTAL & the "He-cession"

In any given year, over 100 young Montrealers learn a trade at Formétal.  It’s a unique initiative in social economics – a successful business that manufactures metal products while helping high school dropouts break into the job market.

Formétal’s training role takes on even greater importance in the midst of a crisis that has been disproportionately tough on the demographic group that benefits most from its services – young men under 25.

As of July, 71% percent of all Canadians who had lost jobs in this recession were men. Furthermore, although workers under 25 account for only 15 percent of the labour force, they represent over one third of the newly unemployed.

In a recent report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, “Canada’s He-cession,” authors Trish Hennessey and Armine Yainizyan note that the country’s unemployment gender gap is  “wider than at any time since Statistics Canada began collecting gender unemployment statistics in 1976.”

The gender discrepancy is explained largely by heavy losses in the manufacturing sector, where men dominate the work force. Almost two thirds of all Canadians who’ve been put out of work by this recession – over 215,000 from a total 370,000, as of July – were employed in manufacturing.

However, Hennessey and Yalnizyan predict this gender gap may narrow. Many economists are forecasting a second wave of job losses in the service sector, where women will be affected.

In the meantime, the “he-cession” has some observers speculating on the broader cultural impact of the crisis – with some predicting it will usher in an age of greater gender equality. Reihan Salam, a fellow with the New America Foundation, usually associated with more conservative causes, puts it this way: “It’s now fair to say that the most enduring legacy of the Great Recession will not be the death of Wall Street. It will not be the death of finance. And it will not be the death of capitalism. These ideas and institutions will live on. What will not survive is macho.” Read more of his argument here.

Some Figures

•    370,000: number of Canadians who lost their jobs between Oct 2008 and July 2009
•    262,00: number of Canadian men who lost jobs during same period.
•    217,00: number of Canadian manufacturing jobs cut during same period.
•    136,000: number of Canadians under 25 who’ve lost jobs during same period.
•    245,500: number of Ontarians who lost their jobs during same period.

References: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives; Statistics Canada; Foreign Policy, 18 June 2009