Expansion Management tracks major business expansions in the US while at the same time the federal government agency Invest in Canada tracks major business expansions in Canada.
These two interesting sources tell us a lot about economic development in North America.
Since 2000, Invest in Canada has identified 4o some investments in New Brunswick:
Imperial Oil – Call Center Expansion
Help Desk Now– Call Center Expansion
Clientlogic– Call Center Expansion
Centerbeam– Call Center Expansion
Exxonmobil– Call Center Expansion
Virtual-Agent Services Canada– Call Center Expansion
Virtual-Agent Services Canada– Call Center Expansion
Cendant Canada– Call Center Expansion
Virtual-Agent Services Canada– Call Center Expansion
Virtual-Agent Services Canada– Call Center Expansion
Archway Marketing Services– Call Center Expansion
Virtual-Agent Services Canada– Call Center Expansion
CustomerWorks– Call Center Expansion
Aol Canada– Call Center Expansion
ICT Group– Call Center Expansion
Spielo – local expansion
Exigen – local expansion
A V Nackawic – existing firm retained – no new jobs
Upm-Kymmene Miramichi – existing firm retained – no new jobs
Av Cell– existing firm retained – no new jobs
Westcoast Power Bayside – ??
Ameri-Globe – ??
Technico Technologies – potato producer
Now this might not be an exhaustive list but it’s pretty close. And what this tells us is that since 2000, basically the time the PCs have come into power, there have been 15 call centre expansions (all but 2-3 were brought here under the previous government)..
…and not much else.
The other interesting point about this is when you browse both of these sources you get an interesting trend:
In the US, the bulk of new businsess investments are in Kentucky, Utah, South Carolina, North Carolina. Now, do a search on the Invest in Canada investment database. Look for the last 100 investments in Canada. Interesting results. Of the 100:
2 were in New Brunswick – both were call centre expansions
There were 6 in Nova Scotia
22 in Ontario
41 in Quebec
4 in Saskatchewan
17 in Alberta
Now, I have no doubt the Cool Camel spin machine has an answer for this. They won’t like the data source. Or maybe they’ll just talk about cutting small biz taxes.
The job creation over the last seven years has been:
a) well below the national average – almost have the rate of growth.
b) mostly due to call centre expansions, government jobs such as health care and education and the construction and secondary jobs from the $2 billion in increased government spending.
If you look closely at point b) you will conclude, as I have, that is not a good way to create jobs.