This is my least favorite blog of the month. It’s when I get to show up the updated labour market data for New Brunswick. As usual, the numbers don’t look good. The seasonally adjusted number of people working in New Brunswick dropped again last month by almost 2,000 people. As shown in the chart below, only Saskatchewan has a worse rate of job creation (employment expansion) since the Tory government came to power. Incidentally, the ‘unadjusted’ numbers are even worse – showing a less than 2% employment growth during the period from September 1999 to September 2005.
You know what our Federal aspiring, ‘new NB toting’, ‘Prosperity Plan working’ Premier said about these numbers?
“….the province is at the mercy of market forces.”
How about PEI with their 12.6% employment growth? Don’t ‘market forces’ affect them? How about Nova Scotia with almost double the rate of employment growth as NB? Don’t ‘market forces’ affect them?
The only ‘market force’ at work here is a government disinterested in economic development for six years.
Employment Growth Rate
September 1999 to September 2005
(seasonally adjusted)
Source: Statistics Canada.
But you will be happy to know that public administration gained 3,000 jobs from September 2004 to September 2005. So the government is doing their bit to support economic development by rapidly expanding the public sector.