The month over month labour force survey is helpful in showing recent trends in the employment situation but a slightly longer term view is a more accurate representation of how things are changing. The following charts show the change in…
Continue ReadingBonjour, Chile
A Chilean firm has bought Flakeboard Co. Time to get on the plane. I remember back in the early 1990s when New Brunswick was starting to become a serious player in farmed salmon – so was Chile in a big…
Continue ReadingThe urban/rural debate: Part 12
I wanted to revisit this issue of the urban/rural debate in New Brunswick in light of a couple of slides I developed for my SJ Board of Trade presentation this week. It goes directly to this issue of becoming more…
Continue ReadingNew Brunswick is not too rural, it is not urban enough
There is a pervasive view that in order for New Brunswick to grow it has to empty its rural population into its urban centres. We are too rural and that is the problem we are told. Once again many people…
Continue ReadingYanks have a statutory federal program designed to “avoid undue concentration of research” in the big urban centres
Good golly, Miss Molly. We heard about an interesting program today. It’s the U.S. Office of Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The mission of EPSCoR is: “to assist the National Science Foundation in its statutory function “to strengthen research…
Continue ReadingEconomic development delayed is economic development denied?
I have to admit feeling quite blue when I read that SWN is postponing its seismic testing for natural gas until 2016. I guess we all knew it was coming given the price of gas right now but it is…
Continue ReadingACOA should do the right thing with their CEDA funding
I like ACOA and I, in fact, do work occasionally for the agency and find the people very professional. I hope I will continue to do work for the organization in the future. But I think they are treating the CEDAs badly…
Continue ReadingGetting out of Dodge at the wrong time
I’m in Boston all week on a course looking at innovation as an economic development driver. I haven’t formally taken courses in a few years and I felt now was a good time and this was an important subject. However,…
Continue ReadingPeople moving out but animals moving in
It’s interesting to see the animals moving into New Brunswick. The wild turkey population is reaching a level that there is interest in starting a hunting season. A few weeks ago, a cougar was caught in a trap near Sussex…
Continue ReadingClarifying EI usage
I want to clear up an important statistic. People are now widely using the 110,000 figure to talk about the number of NBers who collect Employment Insurance each year. That is the correct number but there are two points to…
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