I got laid off. My brother, who had a job at a bread factory, and my kid’s dad, a unionized construction worker, both got laid off the same week. The recession is here.

In part this is because of the spectre of Trump tariffs and also because of the political instability due to the upcoming provincial and federal elections. People like me and my family members who work in the construction and restaurant industries are canaries in the coal mine of the economy. New condo starts have been down for some time, which is an early indicator of a real estate slump—but rents remain high. And January and February are always the slow season, but this seems beyond seasonality.

Every day the algorithm shows me ads for women and young people to get into the trades, many of them touting “stability.” The trades—be they construction trades or cooking trades—are not stable for many of those employed in them. If you make overtime you can make a truly awesome amount of money some weeks. But then in every career there are weeks, months, and sometimes years where you don’t have work.

I’m afraid we are hitting one of those years. Old timers in my union talk about the 1980s which were tough years in the construction trades, how they had to sell their house or deliver pizzas to survive up to two years of unemployment. It is part of the career cycle, but it is not coming at a good time. Maybe there is no good time.

Personally I’m fucked. As a single parent I haven’t yet recovered financially from COVID lockdowns, during which there was about a year of school closures when I couldn’t work, and more precariousness with random industry starts and stops. Without a master licence yet, I can’t set up my own business. People don’t realize that there’s a gap between being an electrician and being able to hang out your own shingle. I’m scraping by on handyman gigs, the occasional piece of writing, and a prayer.

It feels a bit like the start of COVID, when all my friends and family got laid off or had their workplaces close within a few weeks. I’m not scared for my health, like the start of the pandemic, but I also feel like I’m facing this round of economic recession with fewer resources. Everyone has compassion fatigue. Look how low donations to food banks were this holiday season. Look how crazy people are on the roads—bad drivers honking at pedestrians to scramble out of their way, making illegal driving moves, everyone out for only themselves.

Construction, resource extraction, it’s always boom or bust. They’re very sensitive to things like tariffs—hence the softwood lumber battles for decades. And though I don’t work in extractive industries myself, the oil fields do hire many tradespeople who will have to come back to their home provinces if they shut down.

Even if tariffs are not implemented, I’ve already lost my job. My credit is nonexistent. I have a kid, so I can’t just rent a room; I need a small apartment, and that’s expensive. I was never able to buy a house, so I can’t get a line of credit based on it to get through bad times. I already ran through my EI. I spend all my money on rent but it’s above the abysmally low minimum thresholds to qualify for assistance, so I’m not eligible for things like legal aid or welfare.

This is not just me. This is going to be a growing number of Canadians. We need support systems and we need to deal with the housing crisis. But I don’t think we are going to get that kind of thing. It’s just going to be hard times for some, while other people are barely affected.

I wrote recently for the West End Phoenix, a Toronto local newspaper, about homeless construction workers, people who work full time but can’t find housing, often because of bad credit and high rents making it hard to get first and last. All these crises—the housing crisis, the opioid overdose crisis, people living in tents—are all linked together and disproportionally affect people who work construction and food. These issues need to be addressed by the labour movement and not treated as separate community issues. Our wages have not kept pace with inflation, our social programs for unemployed and injured workers are a joke, and multi-tier contracts mean younger workers are locked out of home ownership.

I am both afraid and bracing for a new world that looks like the Thatcher/Reagan/Mulroney years where high unemployment is compounded by austerity measures and attacks on workers, especially organized workers. I was a kid then, but in my organizing work I was always looking back at that period to be inspired by the brave fightback against austerity measures, both in Britain, with the anti-fascist and anti-Thatcher movement, and here in Ontario, with the Days of Action rolling general strikes against then Premier Mike Harris, who Doug Ford is channeling from where I sit.

Recession is here already, for some folks. Like me. What are we going to do about it?

Megan Kinch is a union electrician and freelance writer living in Toronto. You can find her on X at @meganysta.