I have been thinking a lot lately about the lack of ‘breakout’ SMEs in New Brunswick – firms that build something interesting here – a product or service – and then take it into wider markets and move from smallish…
Continue ReadingThe cult of linearity
I am amazed at how many of us fall into the trap of linear thinking. Almost nothing in life follows a linear pattern – and yet we continue to act as if everything will. I left the cult of…
Continue ReadingNB labour market: Green shoots but also emerging weeds
New Brunswick added jobs in September for the second straight month but to put things in perspective you will see in the chart below (prepared by Service Canada) that year over year employment is still down. To put this…
Continue ReadingMcGuinty’s under-discussed legacy
I didn’t follow the Ontario election particularly close but I did review the party platforms, read articles and listened to TVO podcasts on it and I never once heard any of the Liberals trumpeting one of their signature accomplishments. Under…
Continue ReadingWe need good rural economic developers now more than ever
Apparently we are close to some form of announcement on the future of the regional economic development agencies (Enterprise agencies). One rumour circulating is the current 15 agencies will be collapsed into five to align with Statistics Canada regions in New Brunswick. There are…
Continue ReadingCanada is #1 for business investment climate – HST big part of this
Frequent readers of this blog will know that I have written many times on how positive the tax environment is for business in New Brunswick. One of the main reasons is that business doesn’t pay sales tax here. They also…
Continue ReadingGrand vision is okay but baby steps are critical
Call me cynical but I guess I have been around too long. When I read this article this morning about the new Currie Center, a state-of-the-art multi-purpose sports facility that’s expected to attract top athletes and researchers to UNB, I…
Continue ReadingQ1 Labs – another one bites the dust?
I got an email from a friend about the sale of Q1 Labs to IBM. It was titled “Another one bites the dust”. I’m not sure about dust. For the most part there are three options for these tech…
Continue ReadingAfter a bad year, wage growth back on track in NB
I see in the latest Statistics Canada survey of payroll, earnings and hours that NB had the second largest year over year growth in avg. weekly wages. This is after significantly underperforming the average growth rate last year (NB had…
Continue ReadingQuality jobs? Yes, but….
I actually got quite a bit of feedback on my column suggesting that we still need to focus on jobs for those that need them while at the same time looking for high quality jobs (the quality vs. quantity debate).…
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