The Times & Transcript ran a front page story detailing the challenges some of Moncton’s call centres are having recruiting staff. This is an issue – a growing issue – particularly for call centres paying in the $12 to $15/hour…
Continue ReadingThe rise of women
There is an interesting and somewhat controversial new book out entitled The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. I have not read this book but have read several articles on it and it is stirring reaction. David Brooks picked…
Continue ReadingImport substitution: An other important dimension
Most economic developers – at least the ones I know – are free traders as well. They understand the importance of the free flow of investment and labour to efficient economies but they also predicate their support for free trade…
Continue ReadingMillennials in Saint John: Population decline but income growth
It’s kind of interesting. The population aged 25-34 has been in decline in the Saint John CMA but income growth is heading in the other direction. I recently took a look at the 10 year growth in the number of…
Continue ReadingArchitecting and engineering prosperity in New Brunswick
As published in the Telegraph-Journal September 1, 2012 I have been talking about the need for New Brunswick to pursue an “all of the above” strategy for economic development. This approach entails turning over every rock in search of opportunities…
Continue ReadingMy “all of the above” strategy: summarized
A couple of people have asked me to describe my “all of the above” strategy for economic development. First off, I borrowed the term from Obama who talks about an “all of the above” strategy for energy development. I expand it…
Continue ReadingWhere have New Brunswick’s mad men (and women) gone?
As originally published in the Telegraph-Journal (Wednesday this week). The term ‘mad men’ was given to the people involved in the advertising and public relations business back in the 1950s and 1960s because most of the firms were located on…
Continue ReadingFredericton’s Marriott Call Centre: The $150 million mistake?
Invariably, when a call centre closes or cuts its staff I get an email or two decrying the McKenna call centre effort with the usual “big companies come here exploit our people, take our tax dollars (incentives) and then leave”.…
Continue ReadingNB youth need options to stay home
I’m going to start publishing my TJ columns here a few days after they run in the physical paper. Here is the one from Saturday: A few weeks ago three young men from a small town in New…
Continue ReadingNote to Ibby: Which province – Ontario or New Brunswick has benefitted more from the ‘Canadian model’?
John Ibbitson isn’t tiptoeing through the tulips in his column last Sunday. He equates Quebec and the Maritimes (he has dropped Newfoundland from his critique in recent years) to the Mediterranean – “The euro zone could become, in effect, a…
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