PART III: CONTEXT WITHIN WHICH BRIEF IS PRESENTED


Every day we are confronted with more evidence that technological innovations are rapidly multiplying the disadvantages women have traditionally encountered in the workplace. The overall problem is compounded by the increasing number of women who are entering the workforce--the vast majority of them out of urgent economic necessity. The experience of most of these women is:

  1. Structural unemployment.
  2. Widespread deskilling of jobs.
  3. Increasing vulnerability due to obsolescent skills, lack of influence, and undereducation.

In the 1980s the private sector has decided to strive for an increase in productivity and a drive to meet international industrial competition with increased investment in high technology, with the assistance of government assisted or guaranteed loans. The immediate results of this strategy can be found in industrial cities across the country: widespread unemployment with the consequent economic and social costs being borne by the community and the family. In this context, women in industry, who have always found themselves "the last hired and the first fired," are now the advance victims of technological change. Current Statistics Canada figures show that women are losing jobs at a rate of 53% greater than men.5 This means that in the service Hector (40% of Canada's labor market) , banks, insurance companies, printing, communications, 6 etc., where women have found the most job prospects over the last 20 years, and where the "job ghettos" are established, the erosion is quickly accelerating.

Thirty-four percent of the Canadian female labour force, 1.5 million women, hold clerical jobs. With the arrival of high technology in the office, manufacturers now claim increases in productivity from 150 to 400 percent. This means that for every woman retained to feed the machines, between two and five can be let go.7

Many corporations, instead of expanding their activities, freeing their workers to do more creative work, are cutting staff. If this present trend continues, it is estimated that within 25 years, 50 to 70% of today's jobs will no longer exist.8

The greater part of the potentially unemployed in the service industries are women. Obviously, the consequent social costs will be staggering. And with governments, both federal and provincial, reeling under heavy budget deficits and busily cutting back on most social services, our research leads us to believe that Paid Skills Development Leave may begin to ameliorate the economic and social crisis we are irrevocably facing. The role such Leave can play is through the introduction of a program of life-long learning, whereby workers move in and out of the workforce, building and growing on new skills, knowledge and development. This movement will allow for greater numbers of the workforce to be actually employed at any given time.

Velo Lehtinin, in "Approaching a Permanent Educational System," states that, in regard to the problem of unemployment:

Slowing down development of production technology or creating jobs artificially are not, in the long run, intelligent responses. Prolongation of the basic and/or middle states of youth education is not wise from the standpoint of either educational or manpower policy. The most attractive outlook for social policy and for an - improvement of the quality of life would be opened up if a sufficiently large number of adults could be disengaged from working life for training, and their posts filled by unemployed persons.9


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