Worst cities in Canada to find a job are Kelowna and Sudbury

[Anonymous]

Several surprises here. BC is the only province in Canada that is doing well, yet Kelowna is not where you want to be if you are looking for work. The city I live in is just outside the bottom ten.



https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/insight/the-worst-cities-to-try-to-find-a-job-in-canada-213119036.html">https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/insi ... 19036.html">https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/insight/the-worst-cities-to-try-to-find-a-job-in-canada-213119036.html

Sudbury, the hub of Ontario's mining sector, continues to have the worst labour market of Canada's 33 largest  cities, according to this month's edition of BMO's Labour Market Report Card.

The city, founded on the back of Canada's booming nickel ore industry, has since become a poster child for the struggling commodities market with its population only growing 0.2 per cent and employment falling 7 per cent versus last February's numbers. The city stood at 33 on the list with unemployment at 8.4 per cent, nearly a point and a half higher than the national 7.2 per cent unemployment rate.

"Cities have to achieve a certain critical size before they can rely on their own internal circular economy to take hold," says Rafael Gomez, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto. "If single industry doesn't lead to other spin offs and grow a city size beyond a level of several hundreds of thousands of people then when the one or two industries close you're trapped because those industries were essentially creating the viability of every other service sector job there."

While the Greater Sudbury Area's economy has grown to include other services like retail and healthcare, roughly 36 per cent of those employed in Ontario's mining sector calls the region home. Nickel, a key ingredient in steel, was the worst performing commodity in 2015 losing nearly 42 per cent of its value.

Gomez points to other resource-driven economic centres – like Saint John, N.B. in 30th place and unemployment at 8.3 per cent; Thunder Bay, Ont., in 29th and 6.5 per cent unemployment; Saquenay, Que., in 28th with unemployment rates at 7.6 per cent; and St. John's, N.L. in 25th with unemployment at 6.7 per cent – which despite efforts to diversify their economies still suffer from their long-running ties to a single industry.

"St. John's was doing pretty well when oil was high and the offshore oil industry was creating a lot of spin off jobs in the mainland," he says. "Now labour market prospects for people are much reduced."

Ontario has seen a resurgence with the weakening of the Canadian dollar, adding 19,800 jobs in January, boosting employment growth to 1.5 per cent. But despite the rosy outlook for the province's manufacturing sector, Windsor, which landed near the bottom on BMO's report card at 31st, continues to carry the countries highest unemployment at 9.3 per cent. Youth are the hardest hit by the embattled economy there, with unemployment amongst that demographic hitting a staggering 22 per cent in January, according to StatsCan.

Kelowna, B.C. and both Peterborough and St. Catherines in Ontario also made the bottom ten at 32, 27 and 26 respectively, albeit not because of ties to resources or manufacturing.

"They benefit from high housing prices in places like Vancouver and Toronto becoming viable commuter cities," explains Gomez. "So that creates spin off growth and opportunities in those centres especially from ancillary."

Their ties to certain major cities reverberates out, causing employment to come and go in bursts as the cities add new services like big box retailers or personal services.

Montreal, which sits at 24th, has become a mainstay in the bottom ten of Canada's labour markets with population keeping pace with employment growth at 0.9 per cent yet an unemployment rate of 8.6 per cent.

"I think without a natural fast growing population base of your own you need to attract outside capital and Quebec has a hard time," says Gomez. He points out that while the province produces a lot of indigenous companies that do well and boasts a fairly strong and innovative cultural sector, it's not growing fast enough to warrant major investments from outside employers.

"You can say Montreal might be looking bad given it doesn't have a single, big employment and revenue generator, it's diversified enough that it can exist without a successful single industry," says the labour market expert. "It's like an investment portfolio, your returns will tend to be lower but the variance will be lower too – the trade off (is) it creates a more stable labour market."

The Bottom Ten

24. Montreal, Que.

25. St. John's, N.L.

26. St. Catharine's, Ont.

27. Peterborough, Ont.

28. Saquenay, Que.

29. Thunder Bar, Ont.

30. Saint John, N.B.

31. Windsor, Ont.

32. Kelowna, B.C.

33. Sudbury, Ont.

[Anonymous]

I read something that Saskatoon is becoming part of that good place not to be if you are unemployed club. Two years ago, there was a shortage of labour right across Saskatchewan.

[Anonymous]

Calgary's unemployment rate is above the national average and rising..



We have lost a lot of professional jobs with a salary well in excess of $100,000 per year.

[Anonymous]

Kelowna is a summer touristy place with a low wage economy. We had service hands working in places like Grande Prairie and Fort St. John that got laid off that are living there. They are not going to take a 15 buck an hour job in the hospitality industry.



Sudbury is a nickel mining centre and a high wage city. It's suffering from the commodities bust.

[Anonymous]

Kelowna is a summer touristy place with a low wage economy. We had service hands working in places like Grande Prairie and Fort St. John that got laid off that are living there. They are not going to take a 15 buck an hour job in the hospitality industry.



Sudbury is a nickel mining centre and a high wage city. It's suffering from the commodities bust.

Kelowna has beautiful scenery, but it is not a place we would move to if we were looking for good mortgage paying jobs..



I have never been to Sudbury.

[Anonymous]

Although not quite as warm, I like the area where RW lives too..



There are good paying jobs in that area too I was told.

[Anonymous]

Kelowna is a summer touristy place with a low wage economy. We had service hands working in places like Grande Prairie and Fort St. John that got laid off that are living there. They are not going to take a 15 buck an hour job in the hospitality industry.



Sudbury is a nickel mining centre and a high wage city. It's suffering from the commodities bust.

Kelowna has beautiful scenery, but it is not a place we would move to if we were looking for good mortgage paying jobs..



I have never been to Sudbury.

Sudbury is nothing special. It used to be one of the most polluted cities in Canada. There's still some heavy metal pollution in the area, but it is so much better than decades ago. Great fishing within an hour of Sudbury.

[Anonymous]

St Johns making the list is not a surprise, it is an oil city like Calgary, but Windsor, Ontario is..



I thought autos were doing well?

 ac_dunno

[Anonymous]

Kelowna is a summer touristy place with a low wage economy. We had service hands working in places like Grande Prairie and Fort St. John that got laid off that are living there. They are not going to take a 15 buck an hour job in the hospitality industry.



Sudbury is a nickel mining centre and a high wage city. It's suffering from the commodities bust.

Kelowna has beautiful scenery, but it is not a place we would move to if we were looking for good mortgage paying jobs..



I have never been to Sudbury.

Kelowna is a place you go to spend $$, not make it.

[Anonymous]

Ontario likes to brag they have added 100,000 new jobs, but it largely temporary and all our economic eggs are in the auto basket. Ontario will be in some real trouble in a few years that will make Alberta's cyclical downturn look like a tiny blip. Our expensive green energy policies are only speeding the exit of jobs from Ontario.



http://www.autoserviceworld.com/jobbernews/canada-misses-out-on-new-auto-assembly-plants/">http://www.autoserviceworld.com/jobbern ... ly-plants/">http://www.autoserviceworld.com/jobbernews/canada-misses-out-on-new-auto-assembly-plants/

Investment by auto makers in Canada doubled last year from 2014 levels, but the country failed to win any of the three new assembly plants that were announced for North America, pushing Canada's losing streak for new plants to a decade.



Auto makers announced investments worth $1.5-billion (U.S.) in their existing Canadian factories in 2015, according to data compiled by the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank based in Ann Arbor, Mich.



Mexico won $4.5-billion in investment, down from $7-billion in 2014, but was chosen by Toyota Motor Corp. as the site of a new vehicle assembly plant – the eighth new assembly plant announced for Mexico since 2010.



The lion's share of new investment went to the United States, which will receive $29.3-billion in new spending, including a new Volvo Cars Corp. plant and a Daimler AG commercial van factory.



The assembly plants that are now under construction – plus expansions under way that will increase vehicle production at several existing factories – will begin turning out vehicles just as the North American market is expected to hit a sales peak in a decade-long recovery from the 2008-09 recession.



The flood of new production capacity that is already coming on stream or is set to hit the market later this decade has raised concerns that auto makers will begin to rein in spending on new factories. If that is the case, auto makers will have bypassed Canada for an entire investment cycle, meaning the country is unlikely to reverse its new-factory losing streak any time soon.



Automotive credit is tightening and is expected to hit sales in the United States predict U.S. analysts.



Mexico and Canada likely will also feel some consequences from a peak in the U.S. auto cycle. Both countries' auto sectors depend on U.S. demand and are integrated closely with the U.S. industry. A peak would hurt both countries, but especially Canada, where there has been evidence of a loss of competitiveness in recent years.



Ray Tanguay, the former president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc., who is now a special auto adviser to the Ontario and federal governments, said that it's possible that a new cycle of automotive investment won't begin until 2020.



Three auto makers announced major investments in their Canadian plants last year.



The largest was Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, which said that it has spent $3.7-billion (Canadian) since September, 2014, to design and develop a new minivan and retool the Windsor, Ont., plant where the vehicle is built. The company has not said how much of that money has been invested in Canada.



General Motors Co. said last February that it will join with suppliers to spend $560-million at its Cami Automotive factory in Ingersoll, Ont.



Toyota Motor Canada will invest about $500-million in its Cambridge, Ont., plant to build RAV4 crossovers, which will replace Toyota Corolla production. The Corolla is moving to Toyota's new Mexican plant.