What if You Had a Recession But the Unemployment Rate Didn’t Rise?

Okay, we have to talk about a recession. It might not happen, but enough indicators are suggesting that it is a possibility that we do have to go there. At the moment, we have these incredibly low unemployment rates in Canada and the U.S. but how quickly could those disappear if the business cycle takes […]

Cabbies Hate Uber Drivers Hate Cabbies (But Both Sides May be Missing the Point)

Is there a better way to see the future of work than to follow the drama that is Uber? The ride-hailing service burst on to the scene in San Francisco just about six years ago and nothing has been the same ever since. From how to manage a gig workforce through to how technology is […]

Maclean Publishes ’75 Charts Every Canadian Should Watch in 2017′

I’m happy to have been able to contribute to Macleans’ list of ’75 Charts Every Canadian Should Watch in 2017′.  My post was on the ‘Gig Economy’ and you can find it here (you have to scroll down to find it, but that gives you a chance to see some fascinating graphs first) but as […]

On Trend but Out of Luck: The Problem With Orchestras

If I had to think of an industry prone to poisonous industrial relations battles I would probably think first or the auto sector, or maybe even something like education or health. The battles in those industries, however, are apparently being matched by orchestras (can I say ‘in the orchestra industry’?) across North America.  Like many […]

Why Twinkies are an Economic Indicator

Robots, joined by Gig Workers, are now making Twinkies, and they are doing such a good job that their parent company is going public.  That’s a powerful statement about today’s manufacturing and economy, never mind our nutritional preferences. Twinkies, those flaky, cream-filled snack cakes that are apparently beloved by many, have been a business news […]

Sharing the Spoils of the Gig Economy

Amongst the problems with the Sharing Economy – and its offshoot, the Gig Economy – is the fact that shares in it tend to be pretty unequal. In fact, even more than is the case of a usual employee-employer relationship, oftentimes the ‘employee’ in this example (who is really a gig worker) ends up with […]