Ever thought to encourage employers to pay better wages?
Who can servive on minimum wages
Cheers

I got the answer to your Problem ” you want to employ them , you train them”.

1. skills shortages,
2. barriers to world markets for Canadian energy products,
3. inadequate workforce productivity,
4. inadequate public infrastructure planning,
5. tax complexity and structure,
6. poor innovation performance,
7. deficient strategies for trade success in new markets,
8. internal barriers to trade,
9. uncompetitive travel and tourism strategies, and
10. lack of access to capital.

So tell me, dear Chamber members from accross Canada, what is it that you have been doing about that and will be doing about that?

If you do not do anything about it, you are no better than the folks who bitch on the O250’s across Canada.

From what I have seen, the local Chamber needs to take care of its own skills shortage.

6. poor innovation performance,

That reminds me, what is happening with the WIC? The proposals have been in for over a month now based on the schedule on the PBC site.

So, despite all of thsoe shortcomings, Canada has been doing better than most countries during the recession.

Strange, isn’t it?

So, what gives with Alberta? The second time in as many decades that they are running into financial trouble due to their almost total dependance on oil and gas.

Strange, isn’t it?

2. barriers to world markets for Canadian energy products.

Kind of their own making, isn’t it?

Does Newfoundland have such barriers? Will Albert’s so called “loss” be their gain?

Let’s get the real picture on this stuff. The problem with a federation of states, lack of control over many of the items on the list. We need to learn to work together towards common goals for the good of the nation.

But hey, what do I know.

Both Retired and Outwest have got the skilled shortage answer. I find it ironic that the skilled public sector workers have to give up some benefits to get a wage increase and then the government complains that there are skilled trade shortages. Try finding a skilled public sector worker such as a hospital pharmacist in many of the small place in the north or an xray tech or a physiotherapist, for example. It means that patients have to travel long distances to get the basic care they deserve. Open up more training places and spaces and pay them a decent salary and they will come here and stay here.

One cannot just deal with one hurdle. One has to look at which ones are interconnected, at least the key ones, since they are all interconnected in reality

1. skills shortages
3. inadequate workforce productivity,
6. poor innovation performance
7. deficient strategies for trade success in new markets,

So, one cannot just thow money at skills shortage by paying more if there are supposedly not enough people with the rightkind of skills available. One has to get a retuen frothat investment with better productivity, more innovation, and better marketing programs to allow companies to compete with thosewhich are supplying the products and services which are beiing supplied by others from around the world.

It all begins at home. Replace the goods and services being bought from foreign providers with our own, and then build the qulity and service up enough to be competitive in the world.

There are Canadian companies that have managed to do that. Learn from them how it works. Don’ssit on your asses, Chambers of Commerce, and expect the government to do that for you. Educate your members!!

Where does my “skill-set” and age differential float down upon this paradise of worker shortages? Unless one is a member of one of the annointed classes there is nothing out there to re-start a sputtering career. You can only hop through a finite number of bureaucratic nonsense hoops while the white rabbit stays blithley ahead. You throw your hands in the air while the little bunny cuddles up to some interest group you’ve never even heard of. I know plenty of well-ticketed ne-er-do-wells. Ah well, thirty years of toil will take me right back to the dish tub. I hope I die before I retire.

retired said: “Ever thought to encourage employers to pay better wages?
Who can servive on minimum wages”

From the story: “with gaps in trades, technologies, and degree-based professions”

Please tell me what ‘skilled’ employees in these sectors are working for minimum wage…

Considering the documented terrible performance and productivity of Dr Bill McGill in UNBC (current president of the PG board of commerce), one must add
bad management to the list. See for his record:

https://www.google.com/search?sitesearch=250news.com&q=dean+mcgill+&x=0&y=0

It is not clear how can one improve the productivity with bad managers like McGill in Prince George driving the skilled labor away and damaging the industry links with outside of PG and creating further barriers.

This city is in this predicament exactly because of the small gang of people who have dominated it and they are running it regardless of their poor performance. When there is no proper circulation of power, the end result is mismanagement and corruption.

We need another baby boom or a big influx of skilled immigrants. I don’t think Canada is the only country in this situation.

the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has no interest in training our own, that is money out of their members pockets. They are most likely pushing the government to let in more skilled immigrants.

Just had a relative spend some time in St. Paul’s cardiac ward. If it wasn’t for the immigrant workforce in there he would have been hooped.

Please tell me what ‘skilled’ employees in these sectors are working for minimum wage…
========================================
Please tell me how many of the emplyers are paying more then Minimum wage in PG?And how many of the degree based professions belong to the Chamber of Commerce. They all have their own organizations that look after their needs.

The Chambnr of Commerce is another organization that dont know hich direction to fly.They have governemt agencies to help them survive.

And all your fancy talk Gus I can sum it up in a few words, ” and that is foreign ownership”.
Cheers

/

Maybe if (our?) Chamber of Commerce gave each municipal candidate in(an election campaign) more than one minute to answer an in depth question maybe some candidates would convince more people or fewer people to vote for them. But then again one minute? Time is valuable. IMO the thing that stands out to me is re: Chamber of Commerce (in this town) is that they were in favour of our HST. Other than that, name something positive. Being a mutual admiration society is exempt from an answer.

The skill shortage is Canada wide, and certainly will be a big factor in places like Ft St John, Ft McMurray, Kitimat, Terrace, Pr Rupert, etc; etc;

Pr George doesnt have any big projects on the go, so at the end of the day we stand to lose people to these other areas. Bottom line is we dont have many **good** jobs left in this town.

So will the shortage of skilled labour actually be a detriment to Prince George. I think it will. People will leave here to go where the money is.

Dont count on imigrants to solve the problem. We only allow 300,000 people into Canada every year, and are thinking of reducing that number. Most of the imigrants go to the big Cities, like Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, etc; so we wont see to many of them.

This shortage of labour will become really critical in the next 10 years, and we will have thousands of skilled people retiring between now and then. Looks like a serious problem.

Retired said “Please tell me how many of the employers are paying more then Minimum wage in PG”

I can see Gus shaking his head.

The skills “shortage” is a hoax. Managers have been stripped of the ability to hire and this responsibility has been handed over to inept HR departments who are fabricating a skills shortage so they can hire temp foregin workers and circumvent regulated tradespeople and the (fair) wages they command.

Case in point: HD Mining – the tip of the iceberg. Their subpoenaed resume stack revealed ample skilled, qualified Canadian applicants and thier request to fill ranks with underpaid overseas workers was denied. This is happening everywhere.

There is a word for denying a qualified applicant a reasonable oppurtunity for a job – its called discrimination. And its illegal. The only shortage is a common sense shortage. We don’t need immigrants. We need job interviews for the people we have now.