Timber supply, last time I looked we have plenty of timber. Certainly enough to ship millions of cubic meters to our neighbours. Mining, not likely as there is too much opposition by all the enviromentally friendly SUV driving tree hugger wanabees. Tourism and hospitality, I can't afford to run the Circle Tour of the Dead Forest due to the high cost of fuel and strong Canadian dollar. Perhaps if we renamed our forests Bombardier or Air Canada we could get some Federal assistance. Better yet, First Nations Forest and then the natives could sue on grounds that we have neglectfully damaged their heritage lands, we surely would compensate them.

"..some entrepreneurial culture here.." I didn't realize there was such a lack of interest in small business.

I guess as we get older we get smarter. People are starting to realize that if you are in small business, you are just working to pay the government, so why bother.

'if you are in small business, you are just working to pay the government, so why bother.'

To help finance the entrepreneurial powerhouse that is IPG.

Looking a bit closer at the statistics presented, here is where the growth is reported over the 5 year period.

� Wholesale / Retail Trade 1,300
� Professional, Scientific and Technical Services 1,200
� Educational Services 900
� Information, Culture and Recreation 700
� Public Administration 300
� Accommodation and Food Services 300
� Forestry,Fishing, Mining, Oil Gas 200
� Financial, Insurance, Real Estate and Leasing 200

Interesting in that educational services, even though we have a declining school population and a flattening of enrolment at the post secondary institutions, has gone up by that number.

And here is where the losses have occurred
� Other Services -2,000
� Manufacturing (includes sawmills and pulp mills) -1,400
� Transportation and Warehousing -800
� Construction -400
� Health Care and Social Assistance -100

Interesting that over much of that time the transportation has gone down by 800. I do not think that 2002 was a big log hauling year yet and that in 2006 the number of haulers may have started to drop off, but that looks like a high drop off to me.

Interesting that health care took a drop.

The biggest one is �other services�. I wonder if some of those who were included in that previously have been placed under more descriptive categories. That is a large number with a 100% drop off. If so, then the large rise in some of the other service categories are much more easily explained.

Professional, Scientific & tech services up by 1,200. WOW!!!

Same for Information, Culture and Recreation, up by 700 ..WOW!!!

� Business Building and other support services 0

Then, at a time when we should be building businesses I see that in the category of Business Building and support services there has bee no change and, sine the number is rounded of to 0 when displayed in the fashion that it is, we really have no clue what the number of people employed in this potentially important sector at this time in our history is.

It would be wonderful if IPG could provide a bit of a backgrounder and analysis rather than just showing some numbers and �here it is folks�.

Scouten says the latest figures show Prince George has a varied workforce, that has been able to withstand the most recent "adjustments" in the forest industry.

We knew we had a varied workforce when compared to other smaller communities around us but not when we look at larger communities.

What we have not been told is WHY the adjustments came as they did. WHY is eduction up so much. WHY did other service loose 2,000, the highest number of any of the categories. WHY is technical up by a whopping 1,200 which is almost a doubling?

Looks like the industry sectors powered by brains and creativity are WAY up.

Is there any question as to where we should be investing to maximize economic diversity and growth?

Hey bohemian .. I left that for you to point out .... ^5

Now I am waiting for Palopu to jump in with his "wisdom" ... he will need to put his thinking cap on to explain this ....

;-)

It always takes crisis to get humans off their rear ends, to get them to pursue new ideas, new paradigms. The Beetle is giving the humans a great new chance to grow, to get creative... as well as giving the land a chance to rest from the greedy hand of the money worshippers.

There was great emotion and cries of how the economy would fall apart in the states of Washington and Oregon when logging was scaled way back over a decade ago. Not only did the economies not fall apart in those states, they are doing better now than ever before. Creative people found new ways to make a living and the governments of those states found new business's to attract to their states based on the beauty of living forests instead of clear cuts. Oregon and Washington are the only two states in America right now that are not seeing real estate prices fall. Why? Because people want to live in a beautiful place. Not too many people find stumps all that attractive.

Northern BC is not only behind the times, it is still stuck in the ancient paradigm that nature can be mindlessly exploited forever. What is needed in the north are modern thinkers that are looking ahead, not those that are stuck in the 19th century.

Which one are you?

Well said kevin1006 ..... !!!!!

Kevin1006: agreed! What I like about benchmarking is that it prescicely does what you are referring to...they look at the trends, facts & figures, keep a measurement system in place, then we can hopefully make wiser decisions about where we are heading and more importantly, where we SHOULD try to go. For example, we now have a clear & realistic picture about other sectors of our economy that we can continue to grow, to try to fill in the holes that are looming once the beetle wood situation peaks and then leaves a financial hole in our communities. I see people in our community who are indeed trying to move us out of the "ancient paradigm". Some people are kicking and screaming though, fighting everything that involves "looking ahead" and future thinking. (E.g. Airport expansion; arts & culture expansion; inland ports; downtown strategies, etc.)The economic engine that drives Prince George is relatively sound right now, but it sure needs continual adjustments and work on it as we diversify and shift our economy into the future. At least this benchmarking gives an indication that we're slowly but surely moving in healthy directions. While PG slipped in some categories as compared to places like Kelowna (it's hard for us to compete against sunshine and lake frontage), when we look at how PG is doing as measured against itelf, we have made improvements in most if not all categories. If comparing to other communities, I'd like to see us measured against more "apples to apples" communities, such as North Bay Ontario, or perhaps Thunder Bay Ontario. I'm not sure Victoria, Chilliwack & Kelowna are fair comparisons at all.

"Northern BC is not only behind the times, it is still stuck in the ancient paradigm that nature can be mindlessly exploited forever. What is needed in the north are modern thinkers that are looking ahead, not those that are stuck in the 19th century"

AMEN!

People are leaving this industry because it doesnt pay worth s%&t. There is so much red tape to go through when dealing with forestry business its not worth the time and effort anymore for a first time entrepreneur. Try start a forest consulting business and see for yourself as opposed to getting a trade in less time and making more money at the trade.

Owl. Remember that you should always consider the **source** when you look at information. In this case the **source** is IPG, a cheerleader for the City and of course **Hellbent** to prove they have a function so that they can continue to get the **Big Bucks**

This report states that on a per capita basis the average wage in Prince George is $37,597.00 What does this mean??? Nothing. Ask the people in WalMart, Canadian Tire, Sears, the Banks, and all the other stores in the Malls if they are making $37,000.00 per year. What a bunch of BS. The wage for these people range from $8.00 to $10.00 per hour and in most cases they are restricted to 20 hours per week so that the employers does not have to pay any benefits. So even if we assume that they work at 2 jobs to get 40 hours a week all we come up with for gross earnings per year is $18,720.00 based on $9.00 per hour.

Now, take into consideration that the big grocery stores, department stores, etc got rid of all their high paid employees and replaced them with low paid part time employees and you start to see a picture emerge. A store could have twice as many employees as before, however they would still be paying less in wages, and of course no benefits. So in effect you end up with an increase in the number of employees, however no increase in payroll, etc;

I suspect that when these young people work two jobs, say 20 hours at store (a) and 20 hours at store (b) they are in fact counted twice, and that would therefore explain the huge increase in the wholesale , retail trade, of 20%

The utilities did all their downsizing and left town, thats why they have a zero number. Terasen Gas, BC Hydro, and BC Tel are mere shadows of what they used to be.

Transportation and Warehousing can to some degree be contributed to the discontinuance of work at Landtrans Warehouse on First Avenue, and the disapearance of BC Rail Intermodal, and the downsizing because of CN's purchase of BC Rail

Its interesting to note that there is a decided decrease in real jobs. Ie; Construction, Manufacturing, Transportation and Warehousing, and an increase in what I suspect is Government, or Taxpayer funded jobs. Ie; Educational Services, Information, Culture, and Recreation, Public Administration.

In other words there is still significant action at the **troughs**

When you calculate the income from the Pulp Mill, Forestry, Government, Federal, Provincial, Regional, Municipal, plus the Hospital Personel, School District, University and School Teachers, Police, Fireman, IPG, etc; who all earn in excess of $50,000 per year and then blend in the lower paid workers of course you will come up with a per capita salary of $37,000.00 per year, however if you take out the low income earners, ie; those making $18,000.00 more or less per year, then the average income for the balance would jump up to approx $60,000.00 per year.

It appears that we have increases in City Staff, Police, Teachers, Government Workers, etc; and a decrease in areas where people have to be responsible as to where their money comes from.

As an example, a level entry job at the University when it was first opened was $14.00 per hour. That was to answer the phone on the switchboard. God knows what is pays now. People who work at the University get free tuition for their children, while those making $18,000.00 per year, make do with their grade 12.

What a wonderful system we have.

Can`t any one of you put your objections into something less than book form?

The retorts are so long and my reading level so short I keep nodding off after the second or third sentence.

All I need is a glass of warm milk and I could just nod off.

Sorry runner I will try to intersperse with a few lines of levity from time to time to get you laughing, and keep you awake.

A little secret many may not know ..... Runner46 can be seen at 9:00 am every weekday morning running on the indoor track at UNBC starting October 1, 2007 .......

;-)