Armine Yalnizyan

“We’ve never been so close to tackling our biggest challenges. We could yoke the strengths of a powerful new cohort of young workers and breathtaking technologies to the momentum of population aging, extreme climate events and care systems in crisis. We could make every job a good job, the foundation of tackling everything else.”

Armine Yalnizyan is a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene. She is the Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers and writes a bi-weekly business column for the Toronto Star. She served as a senior economic policy advisor to the federal Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada in 2018 and 2019, and has been a member of a high-level task group on women in the economy convened by the federal Ministers of Finance and Middle Class Prosperity during the pandemic. Armine helped shape and advance the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Inequality Project from 2006 to 2016, provided weekly business commentary for CBC from 2011 to 2018, and served as Vice President and President of the Canadian Association for Business Economics from 2013 to 2019.

The opinions expressed by the Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers do not represent those of the Atkinson Foundation.

11 Oct 22

The new villain? Workers fighting for better wages. Don’t fall for it

Greedy. Lazy. Costing us all. Expect anti-worker rhetoric to grow as we look for someone to blame for the pickle we are in.

12 Sep 22

‘Nobody wants to work anymore’ and other falsehoods on Labour Day

One hundred and fifty years ago, Canada led the way. Perhaps we can again.

25 Jul 22

Where is your ER doctor? Cleaning the rooms; there’s no one else there to do it

Not only is there no plan to fix this ER doctor’s light bulb, reboot his computer system or clean his examination room so he can do his job, there is no plan to fix health care, period.

20 Jun 22

‘Laura’s’ story of what’s happening in nursing is a warning to us all

Burned-out nurses are quitting and turning to temp agencies — setting their hours, choosing assignments, earning far more — and sounding the alarm.

2 Jan 22

What football tells us about the future of workers

There’s a labour crisis in the care sector, and it’s a gendered crisis. And nobody’s talking about it.

5 Jul 21

Time is money

What does time have to do with the future of work? In her latest This Minute newsletter, Armine considers who controls this valuable resource at work as we recover from this pandemic.