This is a good news story, kind of, what isn't mentioned is the difference in pay scale between the jobs lost and the jobs gained, I'm thinking that might not be such a good news story.... that and how many folks who have lost employment are part of the new paradigm in pg....

We might need a little more info from initiatives pg to make this a totally believable report.

"We might need a little more info from initiatives pg to make this a totally believable report."

Here is the report.

http://www.businesspg.com/Documents/OtherDocuments/2008_PGEconomicStructureByIndustry_FINAL.pdf

I gather that the demographics have changed to provide a larger working age group which might account in part for the increase in jobs while the population has likely dropped or, at best, stayed the same.

Of course, I might be wrong that the report I linked to is the latest. It is dated December 2008. If there is a new one, then it would be dated .... October 2009??

Prince George is a government town, 45% of the work force is for the government in one form or another. Federal, Provincial, City, NHA, Sd#57, unbc, cnc, non profit organization funded by government etc.

Its a good thing

Gus. There is a new report dated 2009, you can find it on IPG'S website under reports and statistics.

I cant read it all it gives me a headache.

Kitimat's economic base changing, too. Whether they like it or not. Bummer.

Many of the jobs being referred to in the article noted above would actually pay more than your typical mill or "blue collar" job. It's not surprising when you consider the education and qualifications required for many of these positions.

It's a good thing to have a diverse local economy and anything we can do to add to our traditional industrial base is positive. If that means growing the health and education sectors even more, I say full steam ahead. Someone needs to provide these services and it may as well be us.

I can still see a concern with shifting too far to the service sector, especially government. I think the money has to come from somewhere (ie we have to actually PRODUCE tangible goods at some point). We cant all be teachers, administrators and money managers can we? I will miss the day when PG is no longer a blue collar town.

Typical mill? Lakelands average wage is 65,000 a year! 2600 part time jobs at all the stores in every mall and fast food outlet do not really qualify as a job. Even if they are full time jobs they do not pay enough for anyone to live on. Who is going to buy my home when I want to move south and retire? It will not be someone making only 20 bucks an hour. One can barely make it on 20 bucks an hour full time. You can't save any money in todays climate at that wage. 3200 a month is probably 2000 a month when the smoke clears. If your rent is 800, you're just barely staying alive.

It would be interesting to see a break down in the male to female job stats. Almost all the new jobs created in PG have been female profesional based jobs funded by government... and the traditional male jobs in the private sector have been greatly deminished. Not that it is bad or anything, but it is the biggest trend that I can see and I question the sustainability of an economy based on a deminishing private sector that is funding new bureaucracy that has a lower productivity standard of accountability. Another angle to look at it from anyways....

The article notes "Significant growth in the Educational Services and Health Care & Social Assistance sectors" and "overall growth of the local economy has come from service industries which INCLUDE knowledge based sectors". I don't read that to be burger flippers, I read it to mean jobs requiring higher levels of education as opposed to jobs that require more manual labour.

I'm comfortable saying that on average, these types of positions pay more than your average mill job. Nurses, doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, bankers, university professors, IT professionals, etc. Take your pick, most all of them pay more than $65K, some of them pay MUCH more. There's a reason people spend the dough to get the education.