An article in the Wall Street Journal discusses how firms deal with their workers requiring more technical skills. The article notes that “instead of teaching new skills to their current workers, employers often choose the disruption and high costs of layoffs or buyouts.”

a. What category (or categories) of unemployment would workers who are being laid off for the reason described in the article fall into? 

b. The article also notes that “employers are getting little help from the [U.S.] government” in retraining or “reskilling” workers. The article describes a Canadian government program under which “low-skilled workers displaced from their jobs receive grants of up to 28,000 Canadian dollars to cover training in growing occupations, along with costs such as child care and transportation.” What would be the benefits and the costs to the federal government from adopting policies like the one used in Canada?