And the IPG take on this is?

Now that all the gov’t make work projects are drying up PG is going to see the real unemployment picture. You can tell already because most of the big box stores like walmart, home depot, superstore parking lots have a lot less cars in them than they used to. That is the problem with gov’t induced false economies, they are never sustainable and only fixes the problems in the short term, adding to the tax burden for the future. Its like going out to a lot of different stores that advertize, no payment no interest for 1 year, after that year is up you have a lot of bills to pay all at once if you haven’t been paying on them as you go.

I cannot trust those stats! According to King Harper And his court jester Christy The Clown everything is exciting and just ticketyboo! I mean; we have to give rich corporations money so they can operate schools for more workers.

But I’ll bet the opportunity index is up significantly.

Unfortunately we’ve been teaching our kids to be compliant little factory workers (20th Century) instead of inventive leaders (21st Century).

Also, I’ll bet there are a tonne of jobs going unfilled because of skills matching (degree bias vs. marketable skill bias in our society).

So we have an issue of QUALITY, not QUANTITY, where both unemployment an unfilled jobs (and unfilled non-job opportunities) increase.

This is exactly what Alvin and Heidi Toffler were writing about in their 1990 book “Power Shift.”

Were those in government or in the teachers’ union listening? Nope.

They were busy worrying about things like raises every year (above inflation!), seniority, lifetime job security, and unicorns.

Wrong, we’ve been teaching our kids poetry and art and all those other important courses.

Seems to me we haven’t been teaching poetry and art and dance and exploration at all, or so badly it doesn’t matter.

Seems like art is where the money is:

“It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying. He said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. Part of what made the Macintosh great was the people who were working on it were musicians, poets, artists, historians, zoologists, who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.” – Steve Jobs

More evidence that a creative, explorative, whole-brained approach wins in the 21st Century economy:

http://www.danpink.com/whole-new-mind

and

http://www.squidoo.com/linchpin

The future for compliant cogs in a machine? Not so great…

You are correct bohemian1 It is extremely challenging to find people with the following qualifications. Have grade 12, have a class 5 D.L., and can pass a drug test. It eliminates a lot of people!

This little tidbit from another report on the same subject…

“The unemployment rate declined to 7.4 percent as fewer people across the country sought work.”

How do they know who sought work and who didn’t? I’ve been out of work since last July, but I’ve beenn pounding the job sites, and sending out resumes ruthlessly. I don’t show up as a statistic but I’m sure as hell seeking work.

What a bunch of garbage that 7.4 percent stat is.

Try Ledcor or Thompson Creek or Walter Energy. If you have a pulse they will hire you! Piss test though!

Moral of the story is that PG doesn’t have much left to create employment.

We are all tied up in resource tenures for large multinationals that have no big plans in the future other than to maximize profits with existing plants.

We lost 2200 forestry jobs over the last four years and those will likely never come back. To get a new plant built is next to impossible nowadays.

Mining is all a couple of hundred miles away.

The city is a notorious waster of tax dollars on political projects warning anyone that cares not to invest in this community.

We have no quality urban living environment in the city.

We have a heavy polluting oil refinery located in our downtown selling the city the highest cost of energy in North America and poisoning the bowl area 24/7.

We have closed over 2-dozen community schools in the city over the last 10-years making having a family in this city that much more complicated.

We have the worst pot holes anywhere… even the bowl itself resembles a huge pot hole.

We have the most corrupt and ideologically inept politicians anywhere always willing to subsidize their friends in industry at the expense of the home owner and working class.

We have the worst hockey club in all of Canadian junior hockey.

We have no quality campgrounds in the city and all the regional provincial parks and recreation sites have been defunded.

We are the only city to medicate our city water with fluoride.

We have some regional communities that have some of the worst social problems in North America and their problems become PG’s problems.. and we receive no consideration for this from senior levels of government.

The quality of our highway infrastructure is second rate at best… not helping considering we are the most remote major city in the country. We have the most stop lights of any major city thoroughfare.

We do not incubate new business very well, and we do not invest in our own city at all.

Honestly I’m surprised PG only has 8.2% unemployment.

Man you are having a bad day eaglestone! I am in the forest industry and we have hired over 60 new employees in the last year and a half. There is more work than you can shake a stick at, but the pool of potential employees is as scary as I have seen in my 35 years in the business. We are in tough until we quit entitlement programs and make people accountable. I will be long retired before that happens, as we will soon run out of money to support these bums. Now I am having a bad day!!!