HR BLOG

Although most of the jobs added appear to be in the construction industry, the Canadian economy broke records, adding 106,500 jobs in April 2019, according to Statscan. This trend is expected to continue, as long as interest rates remain stable. This contributed to an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, the […]

CPP costs began its inexorable — and unavoidable — rise in January, 2019 — but many Payroll and HR Managers have not given the increases a high sense of urgency. Those that do, will champion important changes to human resources management — becoming the future superheroes of budgets. Although the […]

The Hawkes Decision sets some clarifying precedent for severance payments for Ontario payrolls, with a clear differentiation between companies with payrolls of more or less than $2.5 million — regardless of global payroll of the company. The important takeaway from the December 2018 decision, according to legal consultants at BLG, […]

Part 1 of a 3-part “Triage Productivity” series Triage Productivity (TM) is designed around prioritizing workflow as if your life depended on it — modelled somewhat after Triage field hospitals. (We’re being colourful to make a point. Bear with us.) In Triage, particularly in field hospitals or war zones, the […]

Drug benefits are projected to rise, on average by 11.57 percent on renewal in 2019, with healthcare benefits also rising 11.55 percent (according to Accompass data.) Dental benefits are forecast to increase 5.62 percent. “With good advisors, you’re going to find the rates will typically be lower for a lot […]

Since the advent of smart phones, the human attention span in the workplace has dropped to eight seconds — now shorter than that of a goldfish (at nine seconds) — according to a Microsoft Corp study of 2,000 participants. The main cause of the drop in attention — and resulting […]

Engineering will always be in demand in the “job market” — with the U.S. market projecting an increase of 139,300 engineering jobs, especially over the next ten years, jumping to 1.82 million jobs from the current 1.68 million. Canada and the U.S. closely mirror proportionately. In Canada, the top 8 […]

We could call them “pivotal” moments, or paradigm shifts in the job market. Past technologies such as automation, robotics, green technologies, cloud computing and smartphone radically reshaped the job market. The next big non-economic “game-changer” influencers in the job market will be more diverse. (For the purposes of this feature, […]

In what has been called a “take it or lose it” policy, a new paternity benefit comes into effect March 24, 2019 —allowing for five additional weeks of leave for 12-month parental leave situations, or eight weeks for the new 18-month leave option. There’s a condition: both parents have to […]