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The low productivity of Canadian companies threatens our living standards

How is productivity measured?

Ours was Unit hour Utilization ( UhU ) .

Calculated by dividing the number of transports by the number of hours a unit is in service.

In the fire service, it is calculated as the percent-age of time during a shift that firefighters are assigned to an incident.
 
Lol

Or, set fires.

In the fire service, it is calculated as the percent-age of time during a shift that firefighters are assigned to an incident.

Emergency services are paid either way. Even for shut outs.

Since "productivity" is the topic of this thread.

How is your productivity measured?
 
Universities were created to train priests and ministers.
One of the key elements in the Enlightenment was the switch of the University of Glasgow from the liberal arts to the sciences.

Community Colleges are the modern version of the Andersonian Institute which became the model for the Mechanics Institutes.
They were geared to teach workers, men and women, things that those workers found interesting and helpful in progressing their careers.

Founded in 1796 the Anderson’s Institute was the first technical college to provide scientific instruction with particular reference to the practical application of scientific ideas. The institution was the first in the world to provide systematic evening classes in science and its application and the first to admit women unreservedly on the same terms as men. Its influence was wide spread e.g. in 1799 Count Rumford founded the Royal Institution in London based on similar lines to the Anderson’s Institution.



One thing was not like the other.

One taught children what to think and how to teach.
The other taught adults the things they found useful.

As for Readin', 'Ritin' and 'Rithmetic - generations were made competent in those by Grade 6.
And History and Geography were considered core subjects along with Science.

But all of that was done in classes taught in their native tongue: Cockney, Brummie, Scouse, Geordie, Glaswegian, Aberdonian....

The bit that the school system isn't managing well is leveling up immigrants and ensuring that, no matter what age they enter the country, they have the opportunity to communicate with the locals.

My own racial bias is based on my ears and not my eyes. I freely admit that I feel warmer towards someone who speaks in a tongue I understand, regardless of their skin colour, than I do towards someone I struggle to communicate with. I relate better to a black Geordie, or even a West Indian, than I do a white Hungarian.

For me, getting a new Canadian to be able to be understood by, and just as importantly, understand, Canadians is a key element that needs improvement. And part of that understanding of Canadians has to be a degree of what some might call indoctrination - enough history and geography to let the immigrants understand how Canada and its institutions got to the current state.

But while the immigrant population is large and presents a real problem to the teachers of Canada


The vast majority of school children are not immigrants. They were born in Canada and speak one of Canada's official languages colloquially.
The failure of the system to teach those children their 3Rs is the real failure for which The System needs to be held accountable.
 
Teaching a large part of being a tradesperson, it is expected to have to train and pass on information. Some aren’t good at it/have no interest, but there are many which would make excellent teachers and would enjoy doing so.

For example at some point I wouldn’t mind being a teacher. I genuinely enjoy the trade, and already spend a good amount of time showing others things I have figured out. Other factors are I also enjoy time off, especially in prime time, a excellent pension, not much of a pay reduction, and no requirement to work shift work (personally there is a good chance I will work shift until I retire if I stay where I am at).
true enough. OJT though is a whole lot different than classroom. There are lots of reasons other than skill for an expert to want to hang up his tools so to speak and they are valid so my statement was not intended to slight those individuals in the slightest. I did it myself because of a loss of medical. But my organisation, at that time, did not require a college degree to teach. Learning how to prepare lesson plans and utilize AV sources requires at the most a semester's worth of classroom. Do that and your trade will attract decent people to pass on the info
 
Or, set fires.
It's happened.

Emergency services aren't a great exampler of productivity. They are expected to be available and equipped for the potential rather than the reality. That is one of the challenges, particularly in deployed services.

Community Colleges are the modern version of the Andersonian Institute which became the model for the Mechanics Institutes.
They were geared to teach workers, men and women, things that those workers found interesting and helpful in progressing their careers.
The Community College system in Ontario started out like that but has morphed into some kind of university-light system. The started out as a relatively inexpensive set of programs the could provide training and background in several non-academic fields. My tuition was $75/semester in the late '60s and you could get into a college with Grade 12 when Ontario still had a Grade 13 which was required for university.

In the beginning, some even delivered the classroom component of registered apprentice programs. George Brown College in Toronto started out as merger of the Provincial Institute of Trades and the Provincial Institute of Trades and Occupations. My friend's dad was the first president.
 
Emergency services aren't a great exampler of productivity. They are expected to be available and equipped for the potential rather than the reality. That is one of the challenges, particularly in deployed services.

I guess.

Street level guys weren't involved in emergency planning.
But, our backs understood the basic arithmetic.

Our dept. handled 20 per cent of the 9-1-1 ( paramedic ) call volume in the province. While representing only 10 per cent of the paramedics in Ontario.

:ROFLMAO:
 
How is productivity measured?

Ours was Unit hour Utilization ( UhU ) .

Calculated by dividing the number of transports by the number of hours a unit is in service.

In the fire service, it is calculated as the percent-age of time during a shift that firefighters are assigned to an incident.

A company I worked for decided to measure "proficiency" instead of productivity and pay bonuses based on it. Basically our shift was 9hrs/day x 5 days/week = 45 possible hours billable per week.
If our work orders added up to 45 hours that equaled 100%. Taking time off whether scheduled or not didn't matter. Doctors appointment, too bad no bonus for you.
If i remember correctly the bonus started at 85% and the highest bonus was at 120%. Yes they paid us to overbill customers.

Many jobs were billed book time and we had room to make time on them if we hustled I.e. replacing a turbo, rebuilding an engine.
Diagnostic work was always billed actual hours
And service work was always under billed I.e. annual safeties, oil changes, grease jobs, and brake jobs.

It ended up the senior guys doing engine overhauls such were the only ones getting bonuses because it's much easier to make time on a 50 hour job than on a 1 hour job.

Some of those senior guys started making a lot more mistakes and rework wasn't held against them. It was always 100%.

It also encouraged lying. A turbo would pay 3 hours I believe and 1 extra hour for each broken stud. Many guys would say studs broke even if they didn't so they could get the high percentage. Essentially defrauding the paying customer.

Top bonus was $3500/quarter so a good liar could make an extra $14,000/year.
 
I guess.

Street level guys weren't involved in emergency planning.
But, our backs understood the basic arithmetic.

Our dept. handled 20 per cent of the 9-1-1 ( paramedic ) call volume in the province. While representing only 10 per cent of the paramedics in Ontario.

:ROFLMAO:
That's always one of the challenges comparing rural vs urban. I doubt you took more than a handful of minutes to reach a call then head to a nearby hospital.
 
That's always one of the challenges comparing rural vs urban. I doubt you took more than a handful of minutes to reach a call then head to a nearby hospital.

Low car count + high call volume = more lifts per shift. :)

( If only they paid us by the lift. Lol )

Our dept. called it, "Hi-Performance" or simply, "More bang for the buck."

The way they explained it to us was, the Province of Ontario funded the dept. - only - based on Toronto's census population.

The province failed to consider ( or perhaps they did? ) that one-third of Canada's population is located within a 160 km. radius of Toronto.
Many commuting in from the so-called "bedroom communities". For business, and big-city sports, concerts, festivals like Pride and Caribana, entertainment etc.

That one-half of the population of the United States is within an 8-hour drive of Toronto.

Non-residents come in on VIA Rail , GO trains, and bus terminals.
And the 400-series and QEW highways.

Pearson airport brings them into the city from North America, and all over the World.

The dept. - receives no provincial funding for these non-residents -, because they are not included in Toronto's census population.
 
Low car count + high call volume = more lifts per shift. :)

( If only they paid us by the lift. Lol )

Our dept. called it, "Hi-Performance" or simply, "More bang for the buck."

The way they explained it to us was, the Province of Ontario funded the dept. - only - based on Toronto's census population.

The province failed to consider ( or perhaps they did? ) that one-third of Canada's population is located within a 160 km. radius of Toronto.
Many commuting in from the so-called "bedroom communities". For business, and big-city sports, concerts, festivals like Pride and Caribana, entertainment etc.

That one-half of the population of the United States is within an 8-hour drive of Toronto.

Non-residents come in on VIA Rail , GO trains, and bus terminals.
And the 400-series and QEW highways.

Pearson airport brings them into the city from North America, and all over the World.

The dept. - receives no provincial funding for these non-residents -, because they are not included in Toronto's census population.
Welcome to emergency services in probably every tourist area in the province. At least the fire services can bill back for services on provincial property (mostly highways) because their funding is property-tax based.
 
Welcome to emergency services in probably every tourist area in the province.

There are many paramedic services in Ontario.

Torronto, "responds to 40% of the emergency call volume for the province."

Toronto Paramedic Services (TPS) Multi-year Staffing and Systems Plan Report
May 27, 2019

That's just the City of Toronto. Does not include the GTA.
 
More scary news....



What is Behind Canada’s Growth Crisis?​


Recent research, however, stresses the importance of a nation’s culture to economic growth. Without a culture that supports entrepreneurship and innovation, even the best policies and institutions will produce disappointing results. Canadians need to dispense with the mindset that, in the words of a leading commentator, “in Canada, if you run a successful business, you are made to feel you have done something wrong.”

Raising growth requires a resurrection of Canadians’ faith in the ability of Canada’s businesses to compete in the global marketplace without constant government guidance and intervention. In the absence of such a revival, Canada will be condemned to the stagnation seen in recent decades in Japan and much of western Europe. Canadians need to be reminded by their business and political leaders of the necessity of restoring higher economic growth if we want to pursue a wide range of economic and social goals and restore Canada’s standing on the global stage.

 
More scary news....



What is Behind Canada’s Growth Crisis?​


Recent research, however, stresses the importance of a nation’s culture to economic growth. Without a culture that supports entrepreneurship and innovation, even the best policies and institutions will produce disappointing results. Canadians need to dispense with the mindset that, in the words of a leading commentator, “in Canada, if you run a successful business, you are made to feel you have done something wrong.”

Raising growth requires a resurrection of Canadians’ faith in the ability of Canada’s businesses to compete in the global marketplace without constant government guidance and intervention. In the absence of such a revival, Canada will be condemned to the stagnation seen in recent decades in Japan and much of western Europe. Canadians need to be reminded by their business and political leaders of the necessity of restoring higher economic growth if we want to pursue a wide range of economic and social goals and restore Canada’s standing on the global stage.

How about a government that actively stomps on entire sectors of the economy for ideologically motivated reasons?

That might have something to do with it…
 
Inflation's just the appetizer, it seems....

Uzelman: Canada’s biggest economic problem? Soon, it will not be inflation​


Canada’s most consistent economic problem this century has been anemic growth in both productivity and real income. World Bank data shows under the Conservatives (2006 to 2015), growth in real GDP per capita was about 5% over the entire period. Under the Liberals (2016 to 2022), it grew by only 3.2%. Real GDP per capita has still not recovered to its pre-pandemic peak. Over the last three quarters it has declined, and TD Economics forecasts it will consistently fall through to quarter four, 2024.

This perhaps explains the Liberals fixation with increasing immigration. A growing population builds GDP and the illusion of progress and prosperity, though living standards have not improved. There are many good reasons to expand immigration, but enabling the PM to tout GDP growth is not one of them. The benefits must be balanced with our ability to offer sufficient housing and services for the new residents.

Canada’s feeble income growth is caused by low productivity, which in turn is due to meager business investment in buildings, equipment and technology, particularly since 2015. The Business Council of BC noted, “the average Canadian firm invests far less per available worker than do average firms in other developed countries – and the gap is increasing.” William Robson of the CD Howe Institute noted, “for every dollar of new capital per US worker, a Canadian would get only 53 cents.” Real capital stock per worker has been declining since 2015. That’s unprecedented. It’s wearing out faster than it’s replaced!

None of this will change under current federal policies. The OECD projects that Canada will have the lowest productivity and income growth of all developed countries through to 2060. The Liberal government has thrown many programs and tens of billions of dollars at the problem. From the Global Innovations Clusters (“superclusters”) early in their first mandate to the Clean Technology Investment Credit (CTIC) in the 2023 Budget, the government has been providing finance, grants or investment tax credits. The strategy has been a spectacular failure. The macroeconomic data proves that.

The CTIC alone has a budget of $60 billion over ten years, the Environment Minister said in April. This program was a response to the large US incentives for the clean energy industry. The logic seems sound: ensure Canada does not lose investment in clean energy to the US. But given the government’s record, Canadians should be skeptical the CTIC will sufficiently increase investment, productivity and real income relative to the huge cost. We can hope the credits will at least help to meaningfully grow Canada’s clean energy sector and help reduce emissions. If not, it will be a total failure, a remarkably expensive one.

Experts have been suggesting alternatives to these government incentives for years: Ensure taxes and regulation are competitive, and simplify both. Shorten and simplify project approvals for mines and other large projects, and make outcomes more predictable. Remove inter-provincial trade barriers, and develop a more competitive economy, rather than protecting industries. It is not a complex strategy.

“The federal government needs to switch course.” The CD Howe memo says it best, “Debt-financed consumption, populist tax policies, and industrial-subsidies are not fostering stronger investment. Nor are ever changing and expanding regulations …. Spending and regulating less, and smarter, is the route to stronger business investment – investment Canadians need if they want to escape the low-income trap Bill Morneau [the former Finance Minister] warns about.”


 
Rather than start a new thread, I thought this may be a related topic. If not feel free to move it elsewhere.

There’s much talk about the blue collar anxieties in a culture of meritocratic credentialism. But what is not talked about is the growing cohort of “over-educated underachievers”; those working in occupations they are over-educated for. I’m not just talking about the stereotypical “PhD grad in gender studies working in Starbucks”, but people with degrees working in jobs requiring only a diploma, or no post-secondary at all, and being unable to advance because of an over saturated market in credentialed labour.

Those worried about blue-collar populists are going to hate white-collar populists.

 
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