Statistics Canada recently published a report stating that the growth in paid employment in New Brunswick is highly correlated to the growth in the working age population. Quelle suprise. The article seems to imply the causality is one way. If…
Continue ReadingBe a little careful with the youth unemployment data
Youth unemployment is back in the news after new data suggesting we still have a high unemployment rate among the young. The government just announced a whack of money to alleviate the pain of high youth unemployment. While high unemployment…
Continue ReadingShediac: New Brunswick’s most cosmopolitan municipality?
As you know I have been crunching a lot of Census data recently and have stumbled on some quirky stats. The latest relates to the megalopolis of Shediac. The Census provides information on population mobility – specifically asking where people…
Continue ReadingDr. Strangebedfellows or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Amazon
Over the Christmas season I had a craving for Cherries Jubilee, a decadent dessert featuring a warm Bing cherry sauce served over vanilla ice cream. I went online, downloaded the ingredient list and went to the grocery store. One ingredient,…
Continue ReadingMen Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: Workforce edition
One of my problems is distraction. I’ll be crunching data for a report or presentation and stumble on a tangential piece of data that is interesting. For example, the new annual Labour Force Survey data for 2017 recently came out…
Continue ReadingThe exogenous shock theory of economic development
In the early 1990s when I first started thinking about economic development I had a chat with a Quebec consultant who was helping the provincial government there develop economic growth strategies. He was convinced the only way to grow was…
Continue ReadingWhere are the young entrepreneurs?
We have been debating the curious lack of young entrepreneurs in New Brunswick for years. It’s hard to define the term ‘entrepreneur’ but if you look at self-employment as a proxy – New Brunswick has always had well below self-employment…
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