Author: John Russel Baldwin

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13:

This paper measures job change in the Canadian manufacturing sector during the 1970s and early 1980s. Change in the Canadian economy constantly transfers resources from one use to another. Most previous studies have focused on the extent of interindustry relocation. This paper investigates the degree to which employment is redistributed between producing units in the Canadian manufacturing sector because some firms grow and others decline. In doing so, it examines both the job change that is associated with entry and exit and that which occurs as incumbent firms grow and decline. The associated redistribution of employment is the result of both interindustry and intraindustry shifts in relative firm size. In investigating job or position change, the paper focuses on two issues. The first is the magnitude of the adjustment that the economy has absorbed in the past. By doing so, it provides a benchmark against which anticipated changes from such causes as trade liberalization can be measured in the future. The second issue is whether there is a pattern to the adjustment process. Several questions are examined. Is there a normal or usual rate of job turnover? Does adjustment come primarily on the contraction (lob loss) or the expansion (job gain) side? How does the division between these two change during periods of recession? What is the difference between the amount of adjustment that occurs as a result of entry and exit, as opposed to growth and decline, in the continuing segment? How does the process differ in the short, as opposed to the long run? The answers to these questions are then used to characterize the nature of the adjustment process that is normally at work in the Canadian manufacturing sector.