Harminder Kaur has been looking for a steady job for several months without luck. She is 55 years old, lives with her husband who has a job but cannot provide for both of them. She is absolutely convinced that the employment agencies are worthless and jobs are given on the basis of personal relationship with a team or shift leader or manager of a factory. To her the talk of recession has become insignificant because all she sees and hears in news is different from her and her friends’ real like experience.

The economists explain recession as a period of recovery, as a natural period of economic decline to create room for new opportunities. No wonder during these tough times many businesses have opened or expanded in the hopes of economic revival in future. Many new Canadians and college and university graduates feel that having a business of their own is better than having a job where you don’t know when you would be laid off, where your shift is supposed to end at 4, but you can be told to go home at 2, where the team leader would be hovering over you every second of the day.

The question is: Is being self-employed a good thing?

The self-employment gain “is not necessarily a good thing as it underscores the lack of opportunity in the formal job market,” said Charmaine Buskas, senior economics strategist at TD Securities Inc. “And as workers have fewer job prospects and bargaining power, wages have obviously suffered.”

The disappointment among the youth, however, is huge and can be very frustrating, depressing and discouraging. According to Stats Canada, students between the ages of 15 and 24 were unable to find jobs this summer. The recession hammered summer-student employment and eliminated 45,000 jobs in July – pushing the total job losses since the onset of the downturn to 414,000, Statistics Canada said.

Parliament’s budget officer Kevin Page says the Canadian economy won’t return to full potential until 2014, by which time the national unemployment rate still won’t have returned to the 6.2 per cent average of 2008.

“The sad fact is that recessions are very nasty and they take years for employment to recover,” he said.

We have met many graduates in the fields of Finance, Industry, Arts and Science who report that there are no jobs for them. Presidents of Student Centers at different universities and colleges tell us that admissions to academic institutions are up, however they have friends who have been laid off from various sectors and they fear for themselves with educational debts and loans once they graduate.

Students especially in South Asians families turn to their parents for financial support, nonetheless parents are not able to support them. Some people have sold their houses to make both ends meet. 23 year-old Rizwan could not find a full time summer job, his father was laid off from work and has not been able to search a decent job, his mother was the only one who could work, and the family had to pay mortgage and other utility bills. Rizwan told his parents that he cannot go to university with almost no financial resources. His parents decided to sell their home.

All these real life facts indicate that there is a recession – a serious one.  People have a feeling that this recession is “created by someone – maybe banks, big corporate industries, maybe our neighbor.” And some strongly believe that it is the media that has added fuel to the fire of recession.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney told reporters that “We are on track for the recovery both in Canada and globally.”

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty contradicts Mr. Carney. He says “There are good signs that the economy has stabilized and that there are the beginnings of a recovery, but I wouldn’t put it any stronger than that.”

Our elected representatives are afraid to say that recession is over. Perhaps they have heard too many stories of people’s suffering to deny it or it could simply be the risk that they will be losing their steady job soon that they hesitate to tell public the real truth. Could the fact that more Americans are interested in getting degrees from Canadian universities and colleges make a person who has lost job happy? Could the fact that our loony is stronger than American dollar be satisfactory? Could the statements such as Canada’s economy is better off than America because it has strong basic fundamentals be enough? Should we just look at the bigger picture and be patient since everyone is hit by recession? Should we just stay quiet over our politicians’ bickering over Employment Insurance and elections? We leave it up to you to decide.

To see what small businesses think about recession, we walked into number of small businesses in Mississauga, Malton and Brampton area, and the comments of small businessmen and women are given hereby for readers to make up their own mind about recession or no recession.

Forget about buying luxury goods – Sakshi

Sakshi Dixit has just graduated with a diploma in Business Management. She sells luxury items and is afraid of uncertainty in business. She works five days a week as a business consultant and on weekends, she is at her own business. Her mom helps her out on the weekends. “We never know how the business would be,” Ms. Dixit says. She adds “we are affected by recession. Our product is a luxury it’s not a need, so in recession people find it hard to even buy food, forget about perfumes.” In recent weeks however she has felt “recession is going away.”

People don’t want to spend because media says it’s recession – Lakshman Shoor

Lakshman Shoor from Punjab Jewellers at Airport Rd has lost almost 20 to 25 per cent business this year, however he is happy with the way thing are. Enthusiastically he rejects any notion of recession. He says “If you say that recession is going on and people are not spending, then let me tell you, people are spending money and they are buying gold. It’s the media that is putting in people’s heads that there is a recession going on. Everyone has money, people just don’t want to spend it because the media says it’s recession.”  He adds that in “In India and Pakistan and Bangladesh, one person works and feeds 10 people, here everyone has to work. Canada is a great country for those who wanna work and live here.”

Recession makes people search for better deals – Saleem

Mohammad Saleem, the owner of Mega Liquidation Depot at Dixie and Eglinton Avenue,  says “We haven’t been hit by recession much. We reduced the prices and offered better deals customer service in recession times, better than Future Shop or Best Buy. Also, sometimes we pitch in free items and we get a lot of our business through referrals. Recession times are good because then people go out and search for better deals.”

No jobs, no buying – Tanveer and Akhtar Hussain

Tanver and Akhtar Hussain sell work safetyware at Flea Market. They have started this business just a few months ago. But they are grim about the prospects of their busissnes’ growth. Ms. Hussain says “The main problem is people don’t have jobs and they don’t buy if they don’t have jobs.”  And Mr. Hussain’s feeling is “recession has been ‘created’ by someone, some people out there.”

I’m scared to ask people to invest in life insurance – Rajini

Rajini Kataria, the mortgage broker with York Alliance Insurance, says she cannot afford to pay her own monthly premiums and has lost almost 90 per cent of business since the beginning of recession. She says “people don’t have jobs now, if they had two cars, now they have cut it down to one. If both people get laid off, they call us and tell us that they don’t need the insurance anymore. The government hasn’t done enough in times of recession. As a broker I feel that they can create more jobs to employ people.”

People cancel their cell phone plans within 30 days – Sarika

Sarika Kumari works for a cell phone shop. She has worked for this place for two months as a part timer, and her experience has been “people have started canceling cell phone deals. They buy the cell phone and return it within 30 days because they say they have been laid off. Most of my friends can’t find a job even with undergrad and post grad degrees..and they have to ask their parents for money and most of parents don’t even have a job now.”

Government says something different from reality – Harjinder Dhillon

Harjinder Dhillon is the owner of Dhillon Business Center. His business has a lot to do with money exchange. He opened up a new business in the hope that it will work. He knows that the first 2 – 3 years can be tough, but he did not expect things to be so bad. On top of that harmonized sales tax can be killer for his business.

Mr. Dhillon says “The response from customers hasn’t been good so far. It has been a hard time for new businesses. The recession is not over even though Bank of Canada claims so. The government said something different last year and it’s something different now.”

It’s better to earn $8 an hour than to have your own business – Kanwaldeep  Kaur

Kanwaldeep  Kaur is the owner of Rangla Bazaar, a Desi clothing and accessory store at Malton. She runs this business with the help of her father Tejwant Singh. Just out of the college, she feels that she sits at the store from 11 in the morning to 8 at night waiting for customers, but no one comes. “It’s better that I do an $8 job than to sit here. Here we have to pay rent and other utilities and he (her father) pays off money from here and there but how long can we go about like this.”

We are afraid of harmonized taxes- Mr. Tejwant Singh

Mr. Tejwant Singh comments, “We have been really hit by recession and we don’t think it’s going to be over soon. Also, Harmonized sales tax is another thing we are afraid of. I would request the people to go to their MP’s, get in contact with the government, send out e-mails, we don’t want Harmonized taxes.

There’s no recession – Abin

Abin Nazcar, a young entrepreneur says “We didn’t feel the recession at all. There is no recession in Canada, we are making more money now than before. Small businesses are benefiting and growing more now.”

Not worried about jobs – Preet and Hope

Preet Kaur wanted to travel, so she came to Canada from Australia. She works for a mortgage company as an administrator. At Management level in Australia, she works as an administrator and found the job easily.

Hope Bansal has no specific qualification per se, however she came from Australia too to work in Canada. She is confident that she will do good in real estate agent “because I know I am good.” She expects to make $1,000 a week. The reason for her confidence is that she made enough in Australia.

I ask people ‘what’s recession?’ Adil Hirji

Adil Hirji, a young energetic chap runs his own business and says “I am making more money now than I ever did, people are going on about how they were hit by the recession and it has negatively affected them, but when people ask me, I ask them, what recession?”

Author: Saniya Zahid