About JobsGraveyard

Since the 1990s, the economy has been radically restructured. Good jobs in both industry and the public sector are harder to come by, while low-wage service sector jobs are fast becoming the norm. In particular, the automotive industry has shifted its production strategies and altered its relationship to workers. As the primary employers in the Windsor-Essex region, auto companies’ decisions have had significant effects on the people who make this area their home. Thousands of workers have been laid off or taken early retirement. Unemployment, bankruptcy, and food bank usage have increased. Talented people are leaving every day to seek opportunities for a stable and secure future elsewhere. The ability of this community to sustain itself is under threat. These problems are also being experienced by communities all over Canada, whose historic economic and social foundations are crumbling. It is time to confront the current situation with a critical and imaginative perspective.

JobsGraveyard documents the crisis in communities by providing information on the jobs that are being lost because of a permanent restructuring of the local economy. This restructuring is an ongoing process, since more job losses are still to come. The ever-expanding database of plant closures and layoffs is one tool for illustrating the depth, scale and scope of the crisis that Windsor-Essex County and other communities now face. JobsGraveyard is the opposite of a jobs bank; it is a list of the jobs that we can’t get anymore.

JobsGraveyard also confronts the realities of job loss and its effects on the people around us. We will depict that reality not only with numbers, but also with images and personal stories from people who are experiencing and coping with job loss. This site will not paint the current circumstances with rosy colours by implying that well-paying jobs exist to replace the ones being lost. Only by facing what we are losing, and why, can we marshall the analysis and the collective strength to fight for something better.

Finally, JobsGraveyard also supports actions in the community that build real alternatives. This involves critical analysis of the ‘alternatives’ that are now offered us, like low-wage service sector jobs, the so-called 'knowledge economy', or chasing jobs to the Alberta oil patch. Instead, sustainable and local alternatives are needed, based on the existing and potential capacities of community members who want to live and work in an economy that is both vibrant and just. This site will foster critical analysis of those alternatives, and support collective discussion about, and action towards, vital community change.