How to improve university EDI policies so they address Jewish identity and antisemitism

2025/07/31 Leave a comment

Thoughtful reflections and suggestions how EDI policies can be inclusive of Jewish identities:

According to Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crimes against Jews rose by 82 per cent in 2023.

In the months following Oct. 7, 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza, university campuses across Canada became sites of tension, protest and divisions.

Jewish students and faculty increasingly reported feeling alone, excluded and targeted.

As our research has examined, despite these urgent realities, Jewish identity and antisemitism remain largely invisible in the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) frameworks of Canadian higher education.

These frameworks are meant to address the ongoing effects of historical and structural marginalization. Emerging from the four designated categories in Canada’s Employment Equity Act, EDI policies in Canadian universities tend to centre race, Indigeneity as well as gender, with limited attention to religious affiliation.

Canadian higher education’s primary EDI focus on racism and decolonization is important, given the history of exclusion and marginalization of Black people, Indigenous Peoples and people of colour in Canada. Yet, this framing inadequately addresses the historical and ongoing antisemitism in Canada.

A cross-university study of EDI policies

To understand this oversight, we conducted a content and discourse analysis of the most recent (at the time of the study) EDI policies and Canada Research Chair EDI documents from 28 Canadian universities.

Our sample included English-speaking research universities of more than 15,000 students and a few smaller universities to ensure regional representation.

We focused on how these documents referred to Jewish identity, antisemitism and related terms, as well as how they situated these within broader EDI discourses. We found that, in most cases, antisemitism and Jewish identity were either completely absent or mentioned only superficially.

Three patterns emerged from our analysis:

1. Antisemitism is marginalized as a systemic issue: Where it appears, antisemitism is generally folded into long lists of forms of discrimination, alongside racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other “isms.” Unlike anti-Black racism or Indigenous-based racism, which often have dedicated sections and careful unpacking, antisemitism is rarely examined. While EDI policies can be performative, they still represent institutional commitment and orientation. Not specifically considering antisemitism renders it peripheral and unimportant, even though it remains a pressing issue on campuses.

2. Jewish identity is reduced to religion: When Jewishness is acknowledged in EDI frameworks, it is almost always under the category of religious affiliation, appearing as part of the demographic sections. This framing erases the ethnic and cultural dimensions of Jewish identity and peoplehood and disregards the ways in which many Canadian Jews understand themselves. The lack of understanding of Jewishness as an intersectional identity also erases the experiences of Jews of colour, LGBTQ+ Jews, and Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews.

While some Jews may identify as white, some do not, and even those who benefit from white privilege may still experience antisemitism and exclusion.

The recent scholarly study, “Jews and Israel 2024: A Survey of Canadian Attitudes and Jewish Perceptions” by sociologist Robert Brym, finds that 91 per cent of 414 Jewish respondents in the overall study believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state — a response Brym believes indicates that the respondent is a Zionist, echoing a broad definition of the term. (Three per cent of Jewish respondents opposed the view that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, and six per cent said they didn’t know).

For most Canadian Jews in the study, Brym writes, “support for the existence of a Jewish state in Israel is a central component of their identity.”

But Zionism presents a challenge for EDI for several reasons. Firstly, Zionism enters into a tension with (mis)conceptions of Jews as non-racialized people within anti-racism discourses.

Secondly, some scholars and activist movements address Zionism largely as a form of settler colonialism.

While debates over the historical sources of Zionism and their political implications are legitimate and evolving, the danger arises when debates shift to embodying and targeting Jews as individuals. Furthermore, “anti-Zionist” discourses, often amplified in student protests, risk flattening the diversity that exists under the Zionist identification.

3. Pairing antisemitism and Islamophobia: In the EDI policies we examined, antisemitism is rhetorically paired with Islamophobia: In nearly every case where antisemitism was mentioned, it was coupled with Islamophobia. This rhetorical symmetry may be driven by institutional anxiety over appearing biased or by attempts to balance political sensitivities. Yet it falsely implies that antisemitism and Islamophobia are similar or are inherently connected.

While intersectional analysis of antisemitism and Islamophobia can yield insight, this pairing functions as an avoidance mechanism and a shortcut.

Failure to name, analyze Jewish identity

The erasure of antisemitism from EDI policies affects how Jewish students and faculty experience campus life. Jews may not be marginalized in the same way as other equity-seeking groups, yet they are still deserving of protection and inclusion.

The EDI principle of listening to lived experiences cannot be applied selectivity. Jewish identity is complex, and framing it narrowly contributes to undercounting Jewish people in institutional data and EDI policies. Simplistic classifications erase differences, silence lived experiences and reinforce assimilation.

By failing to name and analyze Jewish identity and antisemitism, universities leave Jewish members of the academic community without appropriate mechanisms of support. The lack of EDI recognition reflects and reproduces the perceptions of Jews as powerful and privileged, resulting in a paradox: Jewish people are often treated as outside the bounds of EDI, even as antisemitism intensifies.

The question of Jewish connection to Israel or Zionism introduces another layer of complexity that most EDI policies avoid entirely. While criticism of Israeli state policies is not antisemitic, many Jews experience exclusion based on real or perceived Zionist identification. Universities cannot afford to ignore this dynamic, even when it proves uncomfortable or politically fraught.

What needs to change

If Canadian universities are to build truly inclusive campuses, then their EDI frameworks must evolve in both language and structure.

First, antisemitism must be recognized as a form of racism, not merely religious intolerance. This shift would reflect how antisemitism has historically operated and continues to manifest through racialized tropes, conspiracy theories and scapegoating.

Second, institutions must expand their data collection and demographic frameworks to reflect the full dimensions of Jewish identity: religious, ethnic and cultural. Without this inclusion, the understanding of Jewish identity will remain essentialized and unacknowledged.

Third, Jewish voices, including those of Jews of colour, LGBTQ+ Jews and Jews with diverse relationships to Zionism, must be included in EDI consultation processes. These perspectives are critical to understanding how antisemitism intersects with other forms of marginalization.

Fourth, the rhetorical pairing of antisemitism and Islamophobia, while perhaps intended to promote balance, should be replaced with a deep unpacking of both phenomena and their intersections.

Finally, universities must resist the urge to treat difficult conversations as too controversial to include. Complex dialogue should not be a barrier to equity work. The gaps we identified reveal how current EDI frameworks can exclude any group whose identities fall outside established categories.

In a time of polarization and disinformation, universities must model how to hold space for complexity and foster real inclusion.

Source: How to improve university EDI policies so they address Jewish identity and antisemitism

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Gearey: In the federal public service, simple gender parity isn’t enough

2025/06/19 1 Comment

Remarkably limited in scope. It’s not just gender parity but representation of visible minorities and Indigenous peoples, along with the intersectionality with gender.

The overall public service record has become much more representative over the years, as any cursory reading of employment equity reports and related data tables demonstrates.

Women visible minorities are slightly greater than the overall percentage of women: 57.8 percent, while Indigenous peoples women are much more strongly represented, 63.4 percent compared to 56.9 percent.

To put departmental diversity variation in context, out of the 31 departments with over 1,000 employees, only 6 do not have gender parity:

Partnership is collective; it doesn’t “give” women anything but rather frees everyone. True gender partnership is architectural — it’s not just paint on the walls. Partnerships must create space for trans women too, whose representation is even more marginal. Broadening partnerships in this way, even beyond binary gender lines, creates more durable and valuable culture change.

This kind of partnership culture-building is especially needed in portfolios such as National Defence, Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and STEM-related departments such as Natural Resources — areas where women remain under-represented and influence is unevenly distributed.

Departments that prioritize inclusion will not only improve productivity and retention, but also align more closely with the values of younger generations entering the workforce.

Still, not all mechanisms for achieving equity have kept pace with the progress they helped achieve. Some public service job postings continue to include criteria restricted to equity groups that include women. If true equity had been realized, women wouldn’t need to tick a box to be counted.

Not all equity groups have progressed at the same pace, so we’re not at a one-size-fits-all approach. Equity must begin with presence before it can refine process.

Tying this up, the risk card — “Diminished Male Relevance” — wasn’t just hypothetical. It captured a fear that progress must come at someone’s expense. Real partnership, however, isn’t subtraction, it’s about choosing to evolve together. If that feels uncomfortable, it likely means we’re getting somewhere.

Source: Gearey: In the federal public service, simple gender parity isn’t enough

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Out of sight, out of mind: underrepresentation of racialized faculty in Canadian psychology

2025/06/19 Leave a comment

Solid analysis and data, likely reflecting historical trends.. One question that remains is the degree to which students from visible minority groups choose psychology versus other areas of medicine as well as the degree that faculty diversity influences that choice. Visible minority students overall are over-represented in medical schools, save for Black and Indigenous:

Psychologists of colour (herein referred to as BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) contribute to diverse perspectives and also conduct critical research that addresses the significant disparities and challenges faced by communities of colour in accessing mental healthcare services. There has been some concern that BIPOC psychologists are underrepresented in academia, but this issue has yet to be evaluated in a Canadian context due to a lack of available data. This study examined the racial demographics of psychology faculty across 23 major universities in Ontario, Canada (n = 1421), the province with the largest number of universities. White psychologists are overwhelmingly overrepresented compared to BIPOC psychologists, reflecting significant underrepresentation relative to the province’s population. White faculty predominantly hold secure academic positions (tenured, tenure track) while BIPOC faculty are concentrated in precarious roles (adjunct, sessional, lecturer). Professors of East Asian heritage constituted the largest group among BIPOC faculty. Additionally, BIPOC psychologists are underrepresented across all professional subspecialties. Systemic racism, historical biases, and exclusionary practices were identified as major barriers. Our findings call for urgent reforms in university hiring practices and psychology training programmes to reflect the diversity of the population they serve and to dismantle systemic barriers that perpetuate racial inequalities in academia. 

Figure 2

Rank position by race and within race. (A) Depicts numbers of psychology faculty by their job seniority. White faculty are shown in blue and aggregate BIPOC faculty in pink. (B) shows numbers of faculty by job seniority excluding White faculty but including breakdown by race for the BIPOC group.

media/image002.png

…

Source: Out of sight, out of mind: underrepresentation of racialized faculty in Canadian psychology

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Senator Dasko pitches elections law reforms to address enduring issue of candidate diversity

2025/06/12 Leave a comment

Repeat of previous bill that died: Highly unlikely that this bill, should it make it to the Commons, will pass given that political parties oppose being shackled by similar provisions as the public service and federally-regulated sectors, as in the case of privacy:

…Experts offered mixed reviews of Bill S-213, describing it as a ‘baby step’ forward, or as a watered-down attempt to address an already well-known problem….

But one area where Tolley said she wishes the bill went further is in terms of broader—not gender specific—diversity.

“There has been a tendency when we have these conversations about diversification to focus on

gender, and assume that if we figure out the gender piece, all of the other diversities will follow.

The research suggests that’s not really the case,” she said. “When we focus on diversity in this sort of aggregate or generic way, the primary beneficiaries tend to be white women, often to the exclusion of other groups.”

Still, recognizing the “balancing act” in play in regulating political parties, Tolley said she sees the bill as a “baby step” forward….

Andrea Lawlor, an associate political science professor at McMaster University, described S-213 as a “very limited way of introducing some requirements around political parties,” but said the voluntary nature of both aspects of the act—of having policies and programs to disclose, and responding to a demographic questionnaire—undermines its effectiveness.

“It takes a kernel of a really good idea, which is enhanced transparency, but I feel it waters itself down,” said Lawlor, who nonetheless lauded S-213 as a good-faith effort.”

Due to its voluntary nature, the survey could produce an “incomplete picture,” and the bill gives parties “that are weaker on these measures” an out in terms of even having policies, programs, or rules to encourage candidate diversity, said Lawlor.

“A party can kind of say, you know, ‘mind your own business, our internal party processes are our own.”…

Source: Senator Dasko pitches elections law reforms to address enduring issue of candidate diversity

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French: Justice Jackson Just Helped Reset the D.E.I. Debate

2025/06/09 Leave a comment

Of interest:

…In its ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the Sixth Circuit’s test. It held that all plaintiffs approach the law equally, regardless of their group identity, and all plaintiffs have to meet the same legal burdens to win their case. There can be no extra hurdle for members of majority groups.

I wasn’t surprised by the outcome, but I was at least mildly surprised that it was unanimous. And I was definitely surprised by the author of the majority opinion — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s most liberal members.

Jackson’s words were clear. Nondiscrimination law is focused on protecting individuals. Quoting previous Supreme Court cases, Jackson wrote, “Discriminatory preference for any group, minority or majority, is precisely and only what Congress has proscribed.” As a consequence, “Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone.”

Crucially, the court didn’t rule that Ames had been discriminated against. Instead, it sent the case back down to the lower court to be decided under the proper, equal standard.

Standing alone, the Ames case is relatively narrow in scope. It only holds that all employment discrimination plaintiffs have to meet the same test. Taken together with the court’s other recent cases, including most notably 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which prohibits race preferences in university admissions, the lesson is plain: Any discrimination rooted in immutable characteristics, such as race, sex or sexual orientation, will automatically be legally suspect, regardless of whether the motivation for discrimination was malign or benign…

Source: Justice Jackson Just Helped Reset the D.E.I. Debate

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Kaufmann: If ‘Woke’ Puritanism Is the Disease, Trump’s Amoral Populism Isn’t the Cure

2025/04/12 Leave a comment

Funny to see some of the critics of left wokism become woke to the dangers of right-wing populist wokism and the failure of the right wing intelligentcia to counter the inherent destructiveness of Trump and his acolytes and sycophants:

To what extent should a society demand adherence to moral norms? Three months into Donald Trump’s second presidency, it’s a question worth asking. Having rejected the puritanical “woke” moralism of the 2010s and early 2020s, Americans are now enduring the opposite problem: Trump and his chief corporate enabler, Elon Musk, have over-corrected, embracing a morality-free style of governance fuelled entirely by a drive to hoard power and punish their enemies.

…This behaviour isn’t just amoral and anti-democratic. It’s juvenile. Trump and Musk have become America’s trolls-in-chief—as exemplified by the White House’s posting of an AI-generated cartoon depicting an immigrant crying in handcuffs. This type of “shitposting” is the furthest thing from presidential.

What makes this descent into power-drunk nihilism all the more regrettable is that it’s come on the heels of a historic “vibe shift”: Many serious liberals and centrists joined the campaign against woke overreach. The most interesting new ideas on the left have been coming from moderate leftists such as Matthew Yglesias, Noah Smith, and Ezra Klein, who leaven their pro-immigration sympathies with respect for border control.

In light of this, the intellectual right had a chance to broaden its coalition, and fashion what I’ve termed a “rational populist” consensus that marginalises leftist extremism. Such a development could, among other things, dispel the stigmatisation of “whiteness” and manhood pervading progressive discourse—which itself has become a source of populist grievance. More generally, it would also help spark a return to a moral consensus that promotes cultural wealth, personal resilience, and classical liberal values such as free speech and equality among group identities.

Trump could have shown the world a way forward by embracing this challenge. Instead, he’s provided a dark cautionary tale about what happens when a nation’s leader throws off all moral constraints.

Source: If ‘Woke’ Puritanism Is the Disease, Trump’s Amoral Populism Isn’t the Cure

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HESA: EDI and the Measurement of Merit

2025/03/26 Leave a comment

Good primer on EDI/DEI considerations:

…Now it is not obvious (to me at least) that the overall results of such a system are any worse than the overall results of the current system. You gain a little bit of equity in one direction and (perhaps) lose it in another. But there are winners and losers when switching from one system to another and the losers tend to scream louder than the winners.

In an ideal world, of course, one would be able to measure everyone individually by distance travelled, without the use of proxies. That way, “elites” from disadvantaged groups would not be unduly rewarded, and financially disadvantaged whites’ underprivileged position would be recognized. There would still be screaming, of course—people who were in danger of losing their position of privilege would still claim that a context-free, single-point-in-time definition of merit is “better” and “more objective” than a context-dependent one (this is more or less the position taken by the Students for Fair Admissions in the Harvard admissions case decided by the US Supreme Court in 2023). But it would have fewer drawbacks than other schemes which measure disadvantage via proxies.

Why don’t we do that? Well, I would argue it is for two reasons. The first is simply that using proxies to measure disadvantage is a whole heck of a lot cheaper than measuring it at an individual level. With proxies, you can reduce disadvantage to a set of categories that can be indicated by a tick in a box, something that reduces complexity and obviates the need to treat each case individually.

But the second and probably more important reason is that distance travelled is not an entirely straightforward and measurable proposition. It is by no means impossible to create methodologies to look for it: the Loran Scholarships and McGill’s McCall-MacBain scholarships both train assessors to look for precisely this (which is a very good reason why the former is so good at picking future Rhodes Scholars). But the problem is that there is no hard-and-fast algorithm here. You have to put selectors in a position where they can exercise judgment. And frankly, in an increasingly low-trust society, that’s hard to do (Phillip K. Howard’s Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society is very good on the unfree consequences of depriving administrators of the ability to exercise judgement).

And so here’s the thing: if you don’t want to measure disadvantage individually because you are too cheap to do so, and/or you can’t allow people freedom of judgement in assessing disadvantage for the purpose of measuring distance travelled, then what you’re left with as options are measurement by proxy, or settling for a definition of merit that unabashedly favours the members of the lucky sperm club. There is not really a fourth option.

Source: EDI and the Measurement of Merit

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Court denies certification of $2.5-billion Black civil servants class action lawsuit

2025/03/20 1 Comment

Successful in raising the profile and issue, but ultimately failed at court. And the plaintiffs assertion that “they deserve real change” discounts the overall improvement among Black public servants in terms of hirings, promotions and separations:

A Federal Court judge on Monday dismissed a motion to certify a proposed class action lawsuit that was launched by Black public servants in 2020 who alleged there was systemic racism within the public service.

In an “order and reasons” document, Justice Jocelyne Gagne said the case did not sufficiently meet the class action requirement that the claims raise common issues.

Gagne also said the scope of the plaintiffs’ claim “simply makes it unfit for a class procedure.”

Filed in 2020, the class action sought $2.5 billion in damages because of lost salaries and promotion.

The Black Class Action Secretariat, a group created as a result of the lawsuit, is seeking long-term solutions to address systemic racism and discrimination in the public service, including compensation and the appointment of a Black equity commission.

Gagne said the court acknowledges the “profoundly sad ongoing history of discrimination suffered by Black Canadians” and that plaintiffs have faced challenges in the public service.

However, she said the plaintiffs didn’t present an adequate litigation plan and that they failed to present a ground for the court to assert jurisdiction over the case.

The document also said there are several class actions against individual federal departments and agencies alleging racial discrimination, which “overlap significantly with the present action.”

Proposed class members, the judge said, “would therefore be included in the class definition of these other class proceedings.”

The Black Class Action Secretariat said in a news release Monday that the ruling was a “major disappointment, but it is not the end of our fight for justice.”

“For five years, this has been a David vs. Goliath battle, and while today’s outcome is frustrating, it only strengthens our resolve,” the organization said.

The news release said systemic anti-Black racism has long been recognized by the federal government and that the plaintiffs will meet with their legal team to “explore next steps.”

In 2023, a grievance ruling by the Treasury Board Secretariat found that the Canadian Human Rights Commission discriminated against its Black and racialized employees. In 2024, an internal report found that public servants working at the Privy Council Office were subject to racial stereotyping, microaggressions and verbal violence.

“For decades, Black public service workers have faced systemic discrimination, and today’s decision does nothing to change that reality,” Thompson said.

A Federal Court hearing took place last fall to help determine whether the class-action lawsuit could proceed.

At the time, the federal government filed a motion to strike, asking the judge to dismiss the case. The government argued that Black public servants could file grievances or human rights complaints.

The government also called to remove Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP members, as well as Department of National Defence and Correctional Service Canada employees as class members because of similar class action lawsuits against those departments.

Thompson says the government used procedural barriers to “avoid addressing the merits of this case, rather than standing on the side of fairness and accountability.” The government has spent around $10 million fighting the class action.

“Black workers deserve more than recognition of past harms — they deserve real change,” he said.

Source: Court denies certification of $2.5-billion Black civil servants class action lawsuit

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HESA: The Future of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education

2025/03/19 Leave a comment

Interesting and likely realistic take:

…There are, furthermore, two big differences between Canada and the US with respect to EDI that are worth keeping in mind. The first is that EDI in Canada had very little to do with the composition of the student body; unlike the US, students from racialized backgrounds are substantially over-represented (as compared to the general population) in the student body up here. This is not to say that students from all racialized backgrounds are over-represented, but more are than are not (see back here for more on this). As a result, EDI in Canada tends to be much more about representation at the staff level, and specifically—given the politics of the institution—about academic staff. And to the extent that diversity in hiring, pay and promotion is at the heart of Canadian EDI efforts, current practice in academia is not all that far off the standard in the Canadian private sector, where diversity initiatives have been the norm for quite some time. This is why there aren’t that many Boards of Governors, even in Conservative places like Alberta, that have really blinked at EDI hiring initiatives.

The second is that the prominent presence of Indigenous peoples and the legacy of Truth and Reconciliation add a complicating layer to the whole issue. Indigenous peoples are generally not included in most EDI processes because it is recognized that, for historical and Treaty reasons, they absolutely should not be lumped in with other under-represented groups in terms of process, even if both are deserving of and would benefit from greater efforts at inclusion. Having two separate processes is complicated and can at a superficial level look a bit wasteful and politically complicated, but at the end of the day, that complication works in favour of EDI, institutionally speaking. No one—and I mean no one—is going to try and reverse Indigenization initiatives at Canadian universities. And because at least some of the aims of EDI & Indigenization are parallel (ish), going after one but not the other is hard to justify. 

So, given all of that, what is the future of EDI in Canada? Well, it depends a bit on which part of EDI we are talking about. I don’t think we are going to reverse course on equity in hiring. Cluster hires will probably continue for a little while yet for the simple reason that alternatives simply have not been very effective at moving the needle on racial equity (we’ve been doing that with female profs for about 40 years now, and while we are getting closer to parity, it has taken an unconscionable amount of time to get there). Neither do I think many institutions are going to change tack in terms of trying to create more welcoming environments: in an era of tight budgets, universities and colleges are going to do all they can to be seen as good employers on non-financial stuff.

Where I suspect we will see change will be in the tendency to add staff positions for the specific purpose of addressing issues of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. This is a place where a larger set of suspicions both in government and the professoriate about “bureaucratization” and “administrative bloat” will be decisive. This won’t necessarily reduce the amount of work to be done, so it probably will mean that more of it is done off the side of someone’s desk. I also suspect that institutions will look less favourably on equity groups’ requests for separate university events (e.g. Lavender Graduation ceremonies). 

Will this result in a tamping down of the (muted) culture wars in Canadian higher education? No. Some people will remain opposed to things like land acknowledgements, and the aging white guy irritation with Canadian history departments being insufficiently “positive” about Canada (meaning, in practice, centering narratives on any groups other than white settlers) isn’t going to go away either. Culture wars never end. Friction will continue.

And so too, broadly, will EDI. Words and tactics might soften or change, and a variety of other institutional challenges (mainly but not exclusively financial) may mean that the issue will never again be quite as central to university policy as it was in 2020 and 2021. But we’re not headed in the same direction as the US.

Source: The Future of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education

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Surge of new judges on top courts cut vacancies to lowest level after years of alarm

2025/03/18 Leave a comment

Of note. The most recent stats on diversity can be found at: https://www.fja.gc.ca/appointments-nominations/StatisticsCandidate-StatistiquesCandidat-2024-eng.html. My summary, comparing the Harper government baseline and subsequent appointments is below:

The federal Liberals have cut judicial vacancies on top courts across the country to their lowest level on record, new data show, after allowing the problem to get out of control for several years.

A flurry of 31 appointments in recent weeks leaves only 13 vacancies, as of mid-March, among the 1,000 full-time positions for judges on federally appointed benches, according to government data.

The previous low in vacancies was 14 in mid-2015, based on a review of data going back to 2003.

The latest appointments, made as a federal election is expected soon, further address unusually sharp and public criticism in recent years about unfilled positions on federally appointed benches. Those include the Supreme Court of Canada, provincial appeal and superior courts, and the Federal and Tax courts….

Source: Surge of new judges on top courts cut vacancies to lowest level after years of alarm

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