Editorial: Manitoba Job Growth

Manitoba was the big winner in job growth during April of 2008 across Canada, gaining 9,000 jobs and bringing the unemployment rate down to 0.5%, the lowest in the country after Alberta.

According to Statistics Canada more than 19,000 jobs were filled across Canada, all of them in self-employment and full-time work fields. However the overall unemployment rate nudged up to 6.1% as more Canadians entered the work force. Most of the employment increase was found in the service industries and construction with considerable losses in manufacturing (a total loss of 112,000 jobs in the past year) with most of those losses being in Ontario and Quebec.

What this means for M9 Web Development Corporation is more opportunity to do the things we love the most! That is design websites, build websites and do search optimization for websites (SEO). With more people entering the workforce and more businesses taking the opportunity to expand it is a great time to be Manitoban!

The Upcoming Skills Shortage

Finding skilled employees was slightly easier for most employers in 2008 compared to 2007 but that is about to change.

This year worldwide trends in skills shortages are making a profound impact in the way businesses hire, train and retain employees. In 2007 41% of all employers had difficulty filling jobs, in 2008 the rate dropped to 31%, but this will change over the next ten years as the population demographics change. And many experts are positive that Canada will not be immune to these changes.

Influencing Factors

Two of the factors that will influence the employee and skill shortage in Canada include the fact that baby boomers will be leaving the workforce and the fact that many technical programs are not receiving enough students. In Canada the population after the Second World War grew quickly with roughly 28 births per 1,000 people (currently the rate is around 11 per 1,000). These people entered the workforce between the 1960 and 1980 and will be retiring very soon.

In addition fewer students are entering job fields like engineering. Instead fields like social sciences and law are attracting the largest number of students (142,000 in Canada in 2006 according to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada report Trends in Higher Education

http://www.aucc.ca/_pdf/english/publications/trends_2007_vol1_e.pdf). During that same year only about 55,000 were studying architecture, engineering and related technologies. This creates a distortion in terms of the skills that are available on the market, a distortion that profoundly affects the job market.

As these factors continue to influence the job market the effects will be felt in many industries

Stress and the Workplace

Workers across Canada are facing increasingly high levels of stress which lead to reduced efficiency and productivity. According to a survey by Desjardins Financial Security (conducted by SOM Surveys, Opinion Polls and Marketing and involving 1,594 interviews in February and March of 2008) 42% of Canadian workers went to work sick or exhausted at least once in 2007. The reasons why the employees came in sick varied but included the necessity to deal with deadlines and not being able to miss the income.

Additionally 90% of the respondents believed that the incidence of stress-related problems such as burn-out and anxiety were increasing. And the cost of these problems shows up on the bottom line of businesses very quickly, according to some studies, stress in the workplace costs Canadian businesses 30 billion dollars a year.

According to a Health Canada report from 2000 the costs show up in:

• Higher benefit payouts
• Higher absenteeism
• Lower efficiency
• Lower productivity
• Less creativity
• Less competitiveness
• Less client/consumer satisfaction
• Higher injury rates
• Higher property damage rates

Source: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/occup-travail/stress-part-1/foreword-avant_propos_e.html

And the situation is not unique to Canada. Bangalore, which is India

Dealing With the High Cost of Gas

This summer gas for your car in Manitoba will probably reach $1.50 a liter in many parts of southern Manitoba while long-term forecasts are equally gloomy. According to Jeffrey Rubin, the chief economist and strategist with the CIBC, gas will reach $2.25 a liter by 2012. However there are things that drivers can do to reduce the cost of driving:

• Replace air filters

Public Service: Taking the Electronic Trash Out

Starting on May 1, 2008 temporary collection points will be established across Manitoba to accept broken or otherwise unusable electronic items for recycling. Domestic items such as TV