There’s no doubt Canada is facing an extremely competitive job market.
Statistics Canada just revealed on Jan. 24 that there are three times more people applying for jobs than there are openings.

Prospective employees must have something to set them apart from the
rest and French-English bilingualism appears to stand out.

Meaghan Jones, 25, was looking for a job after graduation from university two years ago, and had to start by volunteering in a position in the field she was interested in.

A permanent bilingual position opened up, and thanks to her French skills, she was able to snag it.

Jones now works for the Correctional Service of Canada.

The federal government of Canada, is the largest employer in the country and the
largest employer of bilingual workers.    A study released in 2009 by a parliamentary
committee,  revealed that out of almost 180, 000 positions, 72, 000 were designated bilingual.

With public servants retiring every year at an increasing rate, there are between
4, 800 and 6, 000 bilingual positions that need to be filled every year.  The
report notes that there are not enough bilingual graduates to fill these positions.

Jones’ position was not permanently staffed for years and she was able to land the job, because she
spoke French. Her parents believed it was important and would allow for more opportunities for her in life, and they enrolled her and her brother in a French school.

Jones’ says that without this, she would not have the job she currently has. Although some people in her office speak other languages, it’s those French language skills that allow her to stand out and communicate with clients in both official languages. It’s those opportunities that bilingualism can create.

For more information go to : 2009 Parliamentary Committee Report on Postsecondary institutions and the promotion of bilingualism in Canada. 

Their story was published in the School of Journalism’s website, the Ryersonian.ca. Below is an image of the audio and text package they came up with. Click on the image to see their whole story.

As an aspiring chef, on-the-job training counts. So, like many young Canadians, Dylan Rosenthal took an unpaid internship to get ahead in his career.

He began his internship as part of the Culinary Management program at George Brown College, working unpaid for a month before he was offered a full-time job as a junior pastry chef. Rosenthal dropped out of school to pursue the job at Lee Restaurant, located on Toronto’s King Street West.

Since his internship last summer, he has not returned to school and still works at the restaurant five days a week.

Rosenthal says his internship offered him the coveted opportunity to learn alongside industry professionals. “I learned more in my one month there than I probably learned in a year in cooking school” he says.

Rosenthal was also attracted to the prospect of having a high profile restaurant on his resume. The restaurant is owned by celebrity chef, Susur Lee, a big name in the culinary world and an influential boss.

He explained that culinary internships are like a free trial — a chance to test out a new employee before committing to hiring them. “They judge whether or not they think they can work at the restaurant and whether they can live up to the demand.” For a kitchen to run smoothly, he says, “consistency is key.”

He’s not sure where his current job will lead him, but right now, he’s focused on mastering pastry.

Overall, Rosenthal says his experience was worth the sacrifice of working without pay. “When I got offered the job, I was definitely excited. I wasn’t expecting it. It was an honour.”

Stay tuned for more internship stories to come.

By Chris Hampton

While Toronto surges with trendy, gourmet burger joints, one Annex diner serves up hamburgers that have stood the test of time.

People’s Foods opened at 176 Dupont St. in 1963.  The small greasy spoon has charmed generations of locals with its table-side jukeboxes, red vinyl booths and piled-high portions.

“The place hasn’t changed a bit, it looks exactly like Grandpa Dennis had it in the ‘60s,” says Emmanuel Tsatsanis, the second-generation owner who also tends the grill.

While the autographed glossy of Peter Mansbridge hanging from the wood-paneled back wall says, “Best eggs in town,” Tsatsanis says it’s their burgers that have made them famous.

People’s Foods makes “The Unbeatable” burger from a family recipe that hasn’t changed since the restaurant’s opening.  Each hamburger is formed from 6.5 ounces of Canadian lean ground beef, which they purchase weekly from a butcher on the Danforth.

“We’re up to 120, sometimes 150 pounds of beef a week,” Tsatsanis says.

Chef Nick Karras makes burger patties every morning.  The ground beef is mixed with breadcrumbs and the People’s blend of spices – a family secret, of course – before being portioned out and pressed into patties.

The burgers are charbroiled, topped with the standards – lettuce, tomato, and onion – and sandwiched between fresh Kaisers that are delivered daily from Olympia Bakery.

By itself, “The Unbeatable” costs $4.69 – add a side of fries for $2.99.

The fries aren’t made in-house, but they’re golden and crisp, a perfect accompaniment to the juicy burger.  “We used to make them here, but there isn’t enough room to make that many fries,” Tsatsanis says.  The backroom where chef Karras makes the burgers is tiny – maybe 25 square feet – and nearly every plate gets fries on it.

Aside from “The Unbeatable, ” the most interesting offering on the hamburger side of the menu is “The Barbarian” – an eight-ounce burger made from ground prime rib.  While the prime rib burger is a standard on the gourmet circuit, very few kitchens can put one together for as little as People’s can: $8.99, that’s $11.98 with fries. Their prime rib is sourced from Barberian’s Steak House – where a burger can’t be purchased for less than $20.

And this is where the name People’s Foods makes sense; they serve heaping plates of tasty casual food priced for everyone.

By Svjetlana Vrbanic

Johanna Rivic is a humble senior.

At age 81 she receives a small pension supplemented by Old Age Security (OAS). Her
husband Ivo died nine years ago so she also receives a widow’s pension.

Like many seniors in Toronto, she has just enough to cover rent and the bare necessities.

However, she remains optimistic and thrifty.

“I don’t need much,” she said in an interview at her home in a Swabian
seniors residence. “Ivo and I never went around restaurants. I have food.
I have water. If I want something I get it.”

She says the government is doing a good job, but could do more about healthcare.

As a Bosnian with German family roots who spent time at an internment camp after
World War II, she says she’s satisfied with her life now.

According to Stats Canada, in 2003 the median income of unattached women seniors after tax was $18,200.

At a recent meeting of Serb seniors on the topic of pensions, Etobicoke-Lakeshore MP
Bernard Trottier called the Canadian government’s old age benefits a “work
in progress.”

The main source of income for seniors, he explained in a slide show, is the Canadian
Pension Plan (CPP). A person qualifies to receive it at age 60 if they
contributed to the plan.

Seniors who need to supplement their pensions can apply for Old Age Security (OAS). It
is available to most Canadians age 65 or older and people pay into it over the
course of their lifetime through taxes.

Then there is a Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income OAS recipients, an
allowance for low-income widowers and the Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income for
Seniors (GAINS).

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he contemplated raising the age of
entitlement for OAS from 65 to 67.

“First of all we have to have a strong economy to make sure the fiscal situation is
well taken care of federally,” said Trottier in an interview.

“I think we have to have a formula that reflects reality in terms of the payouts
that will occur over a number of years.”

Associate Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia Kevin Milligan questions the sense of crisis or unaffordibility of OAS that’s been raised.

When you look at the numbers, he said, OAS is only going to be going from 2.4 per cent of the Canadian economy to 3.1 per cent in the future.

“It’s not something I would consider a crisis,” he said.

There is also the question of the cost of pharmaceuticals, Trottier adds. This is a part of an “overall healthcare delivery system,” he said, and the provinces need to come up with plan that makes pharmaceuticals affordable for seniors.

In the meantime, Rivic is counting her lucky stars as well as her pennies.

Many non-white immigrants come to Canada with high levels of education but are not getting good jobs, says University of Toronto social work professor David Hulchanski. This leads to a mismatch between education and income.

By Rebecca Tromsness

“Education and income feed on each other,” he says. Generally speaking, the more education you have, the higher your income. But employers often ask for Canadian experience.

“When the Europeans came here in the ’50s and ’60s to fill important jobs, uh, they didn’t need Canadian experience,” says Hulchanski. “So there is discrimination going on that needs to be dealt with.”

City #3 on Hulchanski’s map (page 2) shows the outer suburbs of Toronto – 66 per cent non-white – compared to 16 per cent non-white residents who live within the downtown core, City #1.

Statistics Canada reveals that within some lower-income suburbs of City #3, the education level is higher than one would expect for a low-income population – an indication that points to immigrants with untapped credentials, says Hulchanski.

“All the cab drivers with PhDs and advanced education and all kinds of specialties …They can’t get a job in their specialty; they’re driving a cab,” he says.

Newcomers to the city in the last 20 years have been mainly non-white, says Hulchanski: some come with money but a lot don’t. “There’s a divide. If you come with money, that means you have a choice.”

“A lot of the newcomers frankly want the nice new house on a nice new lot in a nice new suburb,” says Hulchanski, noting that suburbs like Brampton, Mississagua and Markham have concentrations of South Asian and Chinese immigrants. “Others choose the traditional older city of Toronto neighbourhoods,” he says.

“Remember, there’s another category that really doesn’t have a choice,” he says. If you don’t come with money, or if your credentials are not recognized, you easily end up in City #3, in out-suburbs of the 1950s and ’60s.

“These are the leftover spaces for those with no choice because they are a bit cheaper than anything else,” Hulchanski says.

Although a recent op-ed column in the New York Times called income inequality “the next global warming,” the number of families that can’t afford basic needs like food and housing has decreased in the past decade.

The Fraser Institute estimates that, as of 2005, only 4.7 per cent of the population did not have enough income to meet basic needs, down from 7.1 per cent in 1991 and 11.8 per cent in 1973. Statistics Canada, which uses a more liberal measure to estimate poverty, estimates that the number of persons living in low income families was 9.6 per cent in 2009, down from 13.3 per cent in 1991.

Poverty in Canada, as measured by the Fraser Institute and Statistics Canada. (Note: Statistics Canada's updated data continues until 2009; the population in low income dips to 9.2 per cent in 2007, then rises to 9.6 per cent in 2009.)

Meanwhile, inequality has been rising faster in Canada than in the U.S., according to a report released by the Conference Board of Canada last September.

Neils Veldhuis, Vice-President of Canadian Policy Research for the Fraser Institute, says that the disparity exists because poverty and inequality aren’t directly related. Poverty is an absolute measure, based on the cost of living, while inequality looks at how balanced income is across the breadth of society.

The Conference Board’s data shows that in Canada, the wealthy have gotten wealthier – but since the total amount of wealth an economy generates is not fixed, more wealth in the hands of a minority doesn’t necessarily mean that wealth was taken away from everyone else. In other words, the rich are getting richer, but so are the poor.

Veldhuis is concerned that common measures of income inequality don’t take into account economic mobility, which describes how easy it is for individuals to climb the income ladder. He says that although many young Canadians start off in the bottom income bracket, they are unlikely to stay there. Over time, they will accumulate education, seniority, and wealth.

“Income inequality is not a bad thing, in the sense that if those at the top got there through hard work, through risk-taking, through saving and investing their money, that is something we ought to be promoting for our young people,” he says.

According to the Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Center, Canada outranks the U.S., Germany and Sweden in terms of economic mobility.

Canada's income distribution, as measured by Statistics Canada.

By: Amanda De Souza

At 7a.m. on Jan. 27, students from across Toronto arrived on Ryerson University’s campus for the 2012 ‘Home-a-thon’ with hammers, hardhats and hope.

This was no ordinary campaign. Students came up with the idea to raise money by building make-shift cabins to sleep in for the night, braving the harsh sting of winter winds.

“Today it was really raining and snowing and people responded when they found out we were sleeping out here,” says Patricia Ryniak, a second-year communications and political science student from York University’s Habitat chapter.

“It opens a lot of people’s eyes to what it’s like to actually live like this. Nobody would want to live in this. There’s no heating, there’s no water, there’s no nothing.”

The idea is to experience what life is like for families who live daily without a roof over their heads. In a time when the tremors of the recession are still felt across the city, this campaign’s innovative strategy incited action from donors.

The home recipient family was on hand at the fundraiser with an emotional thank you for students and remarks were also made from Neil Hetherington, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Toronto.

Despite targeting students, a demographic with low disposable income, the campaign was successful in filling their empty cans with the generosity of others.

Hawa Yusuf, a former nursing student at Seneca College stopped to donate to a cause that hit close to home. “I live in low-income housing so I know how hard it is, especially with six siblings in a five-bedroom house.”

She also remarked on the uniqueness of the campaign, “You don’t really see houses being spray painted in the streets, it stands out.”

The event also included live music, food donations from local eateries and choreographed dancing in the streets for warmth and entertainment.

Habitat branches run many other innovative charity campaigns throughout the year that entice people to pull out their pocket books, including polar bear dips, Free Hugs days and two on-site home builds in February and October.

Although the campaign didn’t reach its $7,500 goal, it did raise a commendable $3,269 and significant awareness for their cause –  a result that cannot be measured in dollars.

By Asher Greenberg

Eddie and Ita Tobis are a young Orthodox Jewish couple. Two and a half year-old Josh will be starting kindergarten soon. But not in the local public school. Of the plethora of private Jewish schools options, they are leaning towards Etz Chaim, which could set them back $4000 a year, just for kindergarten.

For Eddie and Ita, it is not about specific teachers, special programs, the politics of the schoolboard or even about Kosher food.

The government is “wonderful” in accommodating religious children in public schools, Ita says, like “making sure the kids don’t have homework and tests on religious holidays and the Sabbath.” But, “in a private Jewish school, he won’t even have to think about it. He won’t feel different. He’ll be like everyone else.”

In most private Jewish schools, the day is split into components dealing with Jewish heritage and values, and components dealing with “what any other kid will learn in school. For example, on a Friday morning they’ll have a Sabbath Party, where the kids are taught… why we celebrate, why it’s important for our culture. At the same time, they’ll learn colouring, reading and writing,” Eddie says.

Eddie and Ita are passionate about the issue. They feel the best solution would involve the provincial government funding the portion of the school that relates to general studies subjects, like math, science, and English. “That’s a fundamental right of society, that everyone is entitled to learn math and English. The portion of the schools that relates to religious studies… that’s our private choice,” Eddie says.

But it’s a political hot potato and the results of the 2007 Ontario election seems to have closed that option.

About 30 per cent of tuition subsidies are covered by the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization. The other 70 per cent comes from fundraising. A subsidy committee decides who gets how much.

“It’s not fair to have a very strict subsidy committee,” says Aurora Mendelsohn, who has two girls in the Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School, and has written about the topic before. “Some people have to be really humiliated by the process.” She says she believes the UJA and the Jewish community should contribute more: “It’s a communal responsibility.”

Emma Holland had every intention of going into politics and working on parliament hill. But after
law school, financial burdens won out over aspirations when she found it difficult to land a government job. Ultimately, she chose to work as a lawyer in Ottawa and Toronto.

Holland isn’t alone. While many flock to law schools hoping to work in their dream jobs, students are finding high tuition and debt are influencing their career decisions.

The problem has deteriorated since Holland was called to the bar 10 years ago. Law school tuition fees are skyrocketing, with the University of Toronto having the highest fees in 2011/2012 at over $25,000.

Christine Fougere went to law school to become a criminal lawyer and ended up bogged down by debt.

“I, for some reason, thought that OSAP would cover my expenses,” Fougere says. “I came to the realization that’s not the case and had to apply for a credit line because I also lived away from home and was on campus. And that in itself is quite expensive.”

According to a 2008 Career Choices Study:

• Loans are the main method for paying for law school
• 48 per cent obtain government loans
• 45 per cent receive bank loans
• 32 per cent used income from their employment as a major source
• The average debt when entering law school is just under $26,500
• The average debt incurred during law school is $45,246
• More than three-quarters of law graduates have some debt
• Almost three-quarters of graduates with debt reported their career choices were influenced by debt

This survey received a 24.54 per cent response rate, with a margin of error of 2.36 percentage points.

Although Fougere works as a probation and parole officer now, she still has debt 10 years after graduating from law school and has mixed feelings on whether a law degree is worth the cost.

“Sometimes, when I look at the debt load, I say no, (it wasn’t worth it), because (with) the job I have now, I don’t need an LLB. … I’m doing a job I could have done 10 years ago a few thousand dollars prior to going into debt. But I cannot deny the fact that the information that I gained in certain courses is definitely helping me in performing my job more effectively.”

Holland doesn’t regret obtaining her degree. “I think what it does give you is options. … Employers who are looking for someone even not in a law capacity will recognize that this means something and that there is a value to the degree.”

University and college graduates, increasingly unable to find employment matching their education, are feeling the heat in the job market in these tough economic times.

Rolla Tahir is a recent graduate facing difficulty finding a job suited to the four years she dedicated to Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. She is currently an on-call waitress earning minimum wage.

Tahir lives alone in a one bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto. She is solely responsible for all of her financial affairs and she says that working at the cafe covers very little of her monthly expenses.

Tahir’s employment woes are not atypical. Her experiences represent a growing trend of graduates who are incapable of finding work or are perpetually underemployed. According to Statistics Canada, as many as 18% of university graduates and 23% college graduates were low wage earners in 2006 meaning that their income was less than $17,000 before taxes.

Tahir, however, did obtain a full-time job once she graduated, a job she admits she was unqualified for and received through a recommendation from a co-worker at her university work-study program. Connections and networking above education, Tahir says, is increasingly what gets people employed.

As a Cinema Studies grad, Tahir says she had no illusions about finding a meaningful job easily once she graduated. But after two years at her dissatisfying office job, she took a risk by accepting a low paying, short-term contract for a film festival. She considered it a necessary sacrifice to entry into the film industry.

While Tahir does not regret her studies or quitting her job, her precarious situation could mean her having leave Canada and returning home to the Middle East where her entire family resides.

Tahir, though, is hopeful that she will eventually find a job that will both take care of her needs and help her make headway in the industry. But at this point, Tahir is willing to temporarily work any job that would allow her to stay in Canada.

By Rachel Phan

Tithing is considered mandatory by devout Christians, but the recession has caused many to question whether they can afford to give.

For the devout, donating to the church should be a no-brainer.

Every year, they donate 10 per cent of their net incomes to the church. Known as a tithe, these funds generally go towards maintaining the church and paying church staff.

“In my household, it is not negotiable,” says Careesa Gee, who began tithing from an early age. “For my parents, there’s not even a question that they will give 10 per cent to the church.”

Since moving out of her family home in Winnipeg, Gee has stopped tithing – both because she no longer actively belongs to a church and because she makes considerably less than her parents.

“It does make me feel guilty,” she says. “It makes me feel like I’m not as good a Christian.”

These feelings of guilt are intensified when other Christians stress the importance of tithing.

“Tithing is mandatory whether it’s a recession or not – it shouldn’t matter,” says Angela Tang, a staunch Christian from a missionary family. “I believe that I should give 10 per cent back to God because everything I got came from him anyway.

“I believe that tithing should be observed because the Bible says so.”

The debate over tithing is both lively and polarized. While some are firm believers in its role in Christianity, others are unsure.

Recent studies have shown that religious-based giving has dramatically declined in recent years. The Canadian Revenue Agency found that, from 2009 to 2010, religious donations dropped from $6.04-billion to $4-billion.

Other studies show that people who make less than $20,000 a year are more likely than their richer counterparts to turn to religion during difficult times.

But a crisis of faith might occur if individuals can no longer participate in perceived mandatory practices like tithing.

Like Gee, this may lead to feelings of guilt, or perhaps, rejection of religion altogether.

For others, the solution is simple: get rid of tithing since it has no place in modern society.

“I think it is irrelevant,” says Terry Robinson, a Protestant father of two. “But my religion doesn’t demand it. If it did, I would have to rethink whether to stay in that religion or leave it.”