The "cluster of grapes" analogy totally escapes me... I think I will just have another glass of wine...

Goodtimes..!!

:-)

So really we are trying to say here that we are net negative 1500 jobs in the last 6 years? Considering recent lay offs. These people sure can talk a lot without really producing much of value.

To bad we didn't have a functioning democracy where this kind of thing should be sorted out.

People may laugh, but if we are net engative 1500 jobs, and realestate has gone up 150%, then are we not as primed as anyone for an equity crunch that could be a hard ride back down to where we were in 2001?

How did you arrive at that figure form the above graph ...

Here is my calculation, giving approximate numbers from the graph and using the final year's number from the verbal information

year new jobs
2000/01 -900
2001/02 -1100
2002/03 -400
2003/04 1900
2004/05 2170
total 1670

So there is a gain of about 330 jobs per year according to the graph .....

What I am wondering is why we do not have the 2005/2006 figures yet ....... its been almost a year since the books were closed on that period.

To stimulate the economy I think we should be cutting taxes in this country.

We could pay for this by downsizing our massive federal, provincial, and municipal governments. There would be a tremendous savings to taxpayers (in general) if we transfered as much work as possible from the public sector to the private sector.

The following paragraphs from a July 30, 2007 article on the CTV News web site titled "Public sector pays better than private: Report"

"Canada's public servants earn an average salary far higher than those in the private sector, while the core public service workforce has swelled to its largest size in a decade, according to a new report.

The Treasury Board of Canada posted the 800-page study on its website last week.

In 2002-2003, the average salary of workers in the core public service was $53,000, increasing to $73,400 when factoring in benefits."

"In the private sector, the average salary was $38,885."

If anyone wishes to read the entire article, the following is the link to it.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070730/civil_servants_070730/20070730?hub=Politics

The following paragraphs are from a Jan. 17, 2007 article on the CTV News web site titled "Private sector workers retire later, group warns"

"Private sector workers have to retire later -- and get less expensive benefits -- than civil servants and other public employees, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is warning."

"The proportion of early retirees within the public sector was around 56 per cent in 2005, while in the private sector it was just over 33 per cent. For self-employed workers, only 20 per cent were able to take early retirement.

In the public sector, the average age of retirement is now 59, down from 62 in the mid-1970s. Private sector workers, on the other hand wait on average until 62.

Canada's self-employed individuals retire the latest, on average. From the mid-1970s to today, the average age of retirement for this group has remained stable at 66 years of age.

"In researching this issue, it became obvious that those of us who work in the private sector will not have the same means to retire as our counterparts in the public sector," CFIB president Catherine Swift said in a statement.

"And to add insult to injury, we are subsidizing their retirement lifestyles."

"Stating it simply, Canada's pension predicament is one of fairness between the public sector and the private sector," said Swift.

"There is no valid reason why Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for public sector pensions plans when in fact half of the Canadians working in the private sector will not even benefit from any private pension plan upon retirement."

If anyone wishes to read the entire article, the following is the link to it.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070117/retirement_070117/20070117?hub=CTVNewsAt11

cluster of grapes .... I think all they are trying to say is that one needs a certain magnitude of products or resources before one can do anything with them. It certainly misses the whole mixture of ingredients aspect of symbiotic business relationships.

In other words, until one has enough trees a region within a viable transportation distance, one cannot build a successful pulpmill, or modern mega sawmill. You might, however, be able to have enough wood, if it is the right kind, to create toothpicks ….. ;-)

As the number of businesses and industries grow, they require support services. I do not count those support services as diversification, however, until they grow large enough in themselves that they fan out to other markets to expand and those markets actually become the dominant clients for the business they do and even diversify their products to no longer look like the business they started out as. Bombardier would be one of those – from local snowmobiles to international commuter trains and commuter planes..

True diversification is developing a completely new business which is seemingly stand alone, definitely not dependant on the primary businesses in a region, but feeding off the infrastructure and services which are in place. The closest I can think of locally is advent of the call centres – they needed telephone services, cheap rents, inexpensive living for it low paid workforce, and a workforce that was relatively well educated and eager to participate in the part time work market – University and College students.

A symbiotic cluster of industries would be more analogous to having all the ingredients to make a pizza – mushrooms, peppers, pepperoni, cheese, tomato paste, herbs, flour, yeast, water …. and a hot oven

"To stimulate the economy I think we should be cutting taxes in this country."

Ah yes, the old cutting taxes approach ... it really helped the USA. I see all manufacturing that has been outsourced has been moving back to the USA because they cut taxes, or because they have relatively low taxes to begin with .... let's not forget the tens of millions of people who are living in poverty as a result .... lower the taxes, provide less service to them because industry will grow and give them a job and put them out of their misery ...

yeah, right ...

"In 2002-2003, the average salary of workers in the core public service was $53,000, increasing to $73,400 when factoring in benefits."

"In the private sector, the average salary was $38,885."

Who here is smart enough to figure out what is wrong with this statistic?

Hint ... the range of jobs in government is a completely different mix of jobs than the range of jobs in the total private sector.

Fact - engineers in industry such as Canfor make more money than engineers in government, In fact, that is true for most "professional" job classifications.

Compare a government department of administrative workers to say an insurance company administrative workers with similar levels of clerks, secretaries, executive assistants, departmental managers, vice presidents, president or executive directors, etc. and then lets look at who pays more.

"In researching this issue, it became obvious that those of us who work in the private sector will not have the same means to retire as our counterparts in the public sector,"

????? there are many who are veterans of the amred services, for instance, who can retire after 20 or 25 years. That makes most of them in the 40 to 45 years range if they joined after HS graduation. Those individuals then typically go on to go into things such as sales, running small businesses, etc. Many actually could retire, but chose not to because work keeps them active.

These raw statitistics are actually a bit more complicaterd than these simpleton notions that some get from them. Dig into more details and be aware of the nuances and follow them through ... don't just skim the surface.

"There would be a tremendous savings to taxpayers (in general) if we transfered as much work as possible from the public sector to the private sector."

An oft stated mantra, that conveniently fails to take into account the necessity for profits in the private sector, as no private sector company will ever take on provision of services without profits. Indeed, why would they?

Although lower pay rates may, and I say may not will, be paid to private sector employees compared to public sector employees that does not necessarily mean that it will translate into lower costs for the taxpayer. In many cases the costs to the taxpayer will not change very much, and the profits will come from the differences between the employee pay rates, that is, the savings on pay rates will be taken for profit making.

It should also be noted that, while some pay rates may be lower, it will not apply to all pay rates. Pharmacists in the private sector often get paid quite a bit more than pharmacists in the private sector, for instance.

The trouble with oft stated mantras is that they may not hold up to detailed, close examination. Before destroying the services we already have, and which are already repeatedly criticised as being inadequate, at least do an objective evaluation of the costs involved for a wide variety of professions and services. Accepting a politically driven, unsubstantiated statement based on the lowest pay scales with no evidence ever given to support its contention would be disastrous.

That should read:

"Pharmacists in the private sector often get paid quite a bit more than pharmacists in the public sector"

My finger slipped!

"..To stimulate the economy I think we should be cutting taxes in this country.."

My highest monthly tax bill last year was July when I paid just over $60,000 to government, split between city, federal, provincial systems.

How can the government afford to cut taxes when they require every cent I could come up with?

I agree with Charles. The public service is over staffed, overpaid, and under worked, (in most cases) and has been for years. We need some deep cuts in certain areas, and the monies saved can go to other arears where it can be better utilized.

Just watch a Civil Servant work his 7.5 hour shift with 2 coffee breaks and lunch (extended) and you will get by point. We are not getting any bang or our buck.

"There is no valid reason why Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for public sector pensions plans when in fact half of the Canadians working in the private sector will not even benefit from any private pension plan upon retirement."

Let me see, why are we on the hook? Because the government did not put enough into the system to start with such as private employers do? Even Starbucks has benefits these days.

Half of the private sector workers will not benefit from pension plans? Well, they will get old age security and they will get the government pension plan according to the amount they paid into it. If they did not work for an employer who provided a pension plan, then no, they will not.

Tell you what. Look a bit more closely at government jobs. Then relate each one of those jobs to an equivalent private sector job. Most, if not all those jobs are unionized jobs in the private sector as well and if not, then they are upper management jobs which typically pay more in the private sector in the first place. Now tell me that for the biology technician working in the Ministry of Forests, there is a pension plan in place through the employer, while for the biology technician working for Canfor there is no pension plan in place.

YDPC .... so you sold your business and could not offset the income by another investment?

"Just watch a Civil Servant work his 7.5 hour shift with 2 coffee breaks and lunch (extended) and you will get by point."

I take it you have never been to Canfor's head office ..

;-)

You must remember that the public service has been dwonsized and upsized and downsized so many times in the past decades it is difficult to keep track of.

However, in a downsized mode, the type of work which has been distributed to the private sectors are those which tend to be lower paid or can be outsourced to other provinces or even countries.

Thus, janatorial services might be farmed out to local contractors. Maintaining databases might be outsourced to other countries, such as the USA, India, etc.

What happens if those tend to be lower paying job is that the average salary of those remaining in the public sector goes up. The very phenomenon I mention in response to Charles' post.

What we do not have an accurate record of, is a steady record of the actual work done because of government need to do that work with the work attributed to the public and private sector and the effectiveness and efficiency of each of those two components. I suggest that because that is not an exact sceince, and because the two are closely aligned and can move up and down like a yoyo over time, that government departments expand and contract over time as management changes and seeks to find an optimum solution.

Anyone who contends that public sector employees do not work hard has obviously never done any work in a hospital. Public sector health care workers are run off their feet. I challenge anyone to go and watch them.

Yes, they have a pension pan, and they pay 7% of their pre-tax income into the plan to pay for it. Why is it that they are then told it is a "government pension" when they pay through the nose for it? That is how most public sector pension plans are paid for, employee contributions and matching employer contributions. They are not free at all. Claims they are is just another mantra without a basis.

Blanket attacks on all public sector employees based on self serving and unsubstantiated assumptions about a few are not a valid nor a trustworthy basis for setting public policy. Getting the facts first is.

It should be noted that the amount of work done by many health care workers is recorded in detail under the federal governments productivity improvement program. In the past time studies have been done to score individual items of work in minuscule detail. The number od procedures is recorded and statistically analysed to determine how many units (one minute's work) employees do for every paid hour (includes vacations, sick time etc) and every worked hour (when they are there). It is also used for determining the costs associated with each and every test you have done in a hospital.

The statement often made that hospital costs are out of control is a bald faced lie. If there is one industry that is cost controlled, it is health care. Even the amount of time it takes to do a pee is factored into the figures.

I would not be surprised if those kind of statistical studies are done by outside contractors .....

;-)

The "Manufacturing" and "Forestry, Fishing , Mining, Oil and Gas" don't look right.

Traditionally, the creation of 2x4s and pulp are considered "Manufacturing." So something is seriously messed up with the way they created and counted these categories.

To clarify:

The assertion that " forestry is number 6 in the top six categories" is bogus because in our region a great deal of the stuff considered "Manufacturing" is considered "Forestry" by the average person, stuff like making 2x4s and pulp. Also, according to the categories in the report, forestry is NOT #6, but one part that makes up #6, combined with Fishing , Mining, Oil and Gas.

Forestry is most definitely the #1 employer. Otherwise, to go with the wording in the report, with only a portion of 6.5% of all employment, Prince George wouldn't even need forestry to have a good economy.

And we all know that's not true.

I hate studies and reports with bad math, sloppy definitions and loosey-goosey logic.

Unfortunately I now have to take what the 16-97 Economic Alliance says with a bag of salt.

I also see Initiatives Prince George had a hand in steering this report, so make that 2 bags of salt.

IPG also played a big part in the ridiculous double-counting throughout the "Education Economy" report.

I agree that hospital workers and health care workers earn their money, however that is a small portion of the overall Government Workers from four levels of Government. I doubt if anyone could come up with any good figures to establish what the level of competance would be.

One thing is certain and that is the 7% that they pay into their pension fund comes out of their pay cheques, which are paid for by Taxpayers, so in essence we pay for their pensions, not them.


Ammonora. I have seen the time and motion studies, the number of interfaces per day etc; that you speak of take place in private industrie and can tell you from 1st hand observation that it is all **BS*. I had they distinct pleasure of telling those doing the studies that they were full of crap. May have cost me a promotion but it was worth it.

Most people like to whine about public servants, until they need one to put stitches into their gaping skull, catch the guy who robbed them, prosecute the guy that robbed them, catch people smuggling kiddy porn into the country, educate their children, stop their house from burning down, make sure their drinking water is safe, etc. Why the heck shouldn't these people earn a good living (including benefits and future security) for doing these types of jobs? They are doing this work for YOUR benefit. In addition, most of this work requires advanced education/skillsets that simply put, demand a high wage just to attract people into the jobs.

Of course, nobody talks about those positions. it's much easier to bring up the clerk who makes $40K per year as the example of why public sector wages are so unreasonable :)

They're always hiring at Timmies if that makes anyone feel better.

Owl says "..YDPC .... so you sold your business and could not offset the income by another investment?.."

No offsets. Just have to pay, nothing to do with a sale a few years ago. This is a regular thing. Small business is what pays for everything, and the government is hovering over our shoulder for every last dime.

Actually I found some of the biggest abuse of our tax dollars comes from privatized government functions especialy the non-profit types where they do a government funded function, but have no accountability through access to information and such as to how exactly they are spending our money, because they are set up as a seperately incorporated company.

Privatization in a lot of cases is a way to separate accountability from the politicians for the way they spend our tax dollars, or in other cases a way to usurp a captured market for profits at the expense of the public.

Owl you left out the 1900 job losses recently in forestry from your out dated data.

Also the BC Liberal policy of privatized functions just sees the CEO collecting obscene salaries paid for by the low balling on the employee wages as the new incroporated company can set its on benefit rates. It always pays the top all the cream, and because it is no longer government the public has no right to look at the books.

For example the highways department privatization for one example. Tourism BC is another. BC Ferrys, BC Rail, and BC Hydro are others. Soon our hospitals... it will all be P3 before we know it.

And even if they got 'every last dime' it still wouldn't be enough.

Not because public sector wages are too high, which in some cases they may well be. In other cases, for the services rendered, they might not be high enough.

Some of the things some public sector workers are paid to do, many of us, maybe even most of us, couldn't do. Or wouldn't do. No matter how high the wage. But even if all of them were reduced in wages to what's paid at Timmy's, or less, the problem wouldn't be solved.

But all that's beside the point. As is the argument over which is the better way to deliver any services as to ownership~ public or private.

The primary reason for the efficiency often attributed to private ownership is that it has an accounting mechanism called PROFIT that forces determination of what the actual service demanded really is, and how best to meet that demand.

In public ownership, projected demand for many services have to be determined bureaucratically, and whether what's delivered is actually what's needed or desired is often more difficult to assess.

But that, too, is beside the point. The real problem is simply this:- You can not ever make something that's an overall insufficiency into a sufficiency for all by simply re-distributing it. And what is insufficient collectively, in its totality, is MONEY.

It should be possible, at any given moment in time, for every article that's PRICED in money to have, at that one and the same moment, an ACTUAL amount of money AVAILABLE ~ in existence, in other words~ to meet that price. We don't have that. And that's the root cause of high taxation, which, even after it's removed your last dime, will still see all of us collectively ever more in debt.

"One thing is certain and that is the 7% that they pay into their pension fund comes out of their pay cheques, which are paid for by Taxpayers, so in essence we pay for their pensions, not them."

By the same token, those who build roads must be public sector workers, since they are paid with tax dollars. Same for those who build public buildings. Who knew they were not independent businessmen? The same argument is applicable to anyone who gets any money for doing something for any level of government.

That argument is called sophistry, and it too is BS. When I did work and got paid for it it became my money, not the taxpayer's. I paid the pension bill out of my personal income. The taxpayer did not.

I agree that the time studies are nonsense. They were arrived at largely statistically after a few basic measurements, then extended to all lab procedures. Since their inception in the late 1960s, they have been slowly changed to allow less time for almost all procedures. This has the effect of forcing faster working in order not to let the number drop. Just a management manipulation of employees.

What was interesting, though, was when we one time got to see the figures actually sent in to the Ministry of Health by Northern Health (or its predecessor) and compared them to the figures we had given to them. We found that they had arbitrarily reduced the numbers by a set percentage (I can't remember what, but it was significant) and reported what were, in essence, false numbers. I can't for the life of me understand what the purpose of under reporting workload is, particularly when funding depends on the amount of work done.

"When I did work and got paid for it it became my money, not the taxpayer's. I paid the pension bill out of my personal income. The taxpayer did not"

That is a valid point ammonra. As much as people don't like paying taxes, the fact remains that we are obliged to do so. It isn't a gift or loan to the government, nor do we really have any say in how it gets spent, other than through democracy I suppose. Once it leaves our cheques, that money is no longer ours, it is the property of the government and they will decide how it gets spent. Blunt but true.

Why should I have any more say in regards to what an engineer at the Province of BC should be paid, as opposed to a mechanic at PG Motors? Afterall, I pay money to both of them in some way shape or form, why should it matter whether it's via taxes or repair bills?