After staying for 3 years in Alberta, I could come to the following conclusion.

1. White collar / office jobs are only for Goras.
2. Desis will get only labour jobs- no matter any where in canada

I knew some of my friends came from other provinces like BC and Ontario and gone back recently as they didn't get good jobs here. They told me that they got better work in their provinces rather than here. Further they didn't have friends, relatives, community events here like Toronto or Vancouver.
If you do hard jobs like plumber, welder, electrician, construction labour, then it will be ok here.

Cost of living is more that Toronto as my friends told. Roads are narrow and for years construction work unfinished and it is difficult for those doing driver jobs like cabs, transit etc.

People are rude when I compared to other provinces like Saskatchewan, BC, Ontario.

I am seeing ads for jobs since 1 year for the same position and when I contacted the employer, they told me that they are advertising not for hiring and just to show in the market they are still hiring, when others are firing and reallly they don't want to hire any body. I was shocked by hearing this and I didn't understand, why these people will play with others giving them some hope.

Recently I have attended one interview and after 1 month, they told me that they hired another person and strangely they are still advertising for the same. For another position, they could not find a candidate for nearly 18 months.

Even employers here don't care to inform the employee about the outcome of the interview even after months and they didn't allow any phone calls to find out what is happening. This hurts especiallly for matured job seekers like me.

In another case, I was hired by one employer and next day, she called me and told her boss hired another candidate and she doesn't even know that. Who has to be blamed for their ignorance?

With these horrible experiences, I want to move out of Alberta and thinking of Ontario as the best alternative and I hope I can get the same labor jobs there and I don't miss the community and I feel I am in a city and not in a forest.

Thanks for the info..
I think that with Oil at this rate, Alberta would be a waste province to go to.
BTW, which field are you from?
I donot know if you will belive it or not, but Ontario these days is almost just the same as your mentioned for construction jobs.....
Hope some one from Sask. will give honest feedback regarding the situation there for the benefit of CD's.

TK

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

Total jobs lost in Canada since October, 2008: 295,000 (Most of them in Ontario) based on the news story below published in Toronto Star:


Canada's deepening recession claimed another 83,000 jobs last month, pushing the unemployment rate up half a percentage point to 7.7 per cent and offering more grim evidence that the global economic storm is bearing down with full force.

On the heels of a massive contraction of 129,000 positions in January, February marked the fourth straight month of employment declines and brought total job losses to 295,000 since October's peak. The national jobless rate now stands almost 2 percentage points higher than at the start of 2008, and is at its highest level since 2003. Forecasters expect it to continue rising rapidly, with economists at the Toronto Dominion Bank saying this week unemployment will hit 10 per cent by the end of the year.

While the job numbers "are not wildly out of bounds versus consensus, they loudly confirm that Canada is in the heart of a recession which is quickly rivalling that of the early 1990s and early 1980s," BMO Capital Markets deputy chief economist Douglas Porter wrote in a research note.

The unemployment report, along with other indicators, "are suggesting that the Canadian downturn is actually now accelerating at a more rapid pace than in the U.S., and that wasn't supposed to happen," Derek Holt, vice-president of Scotia Capital Economics, said in an interview.

The losses were larger than economists had expected, with Ontario once again bearing the brunt. Canada's most-populous province shed 35,000 jobs last month, mainly in construction and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing.

That pushed Ontario's unemployment rate up 0.7 of a percentage point to 8.7 per cent, the highest level since April 1997. Since October, the province's jobless rate has jumped 2 percentage points, Statistics Canada said.

The government agency also noted that just over half of all employment losses in Canada since October have happened in Ontario, "well beyond the province's 39 per cent share of the total working-age population." During that time, employment in Ontario has plummeted by 160,000 positions.

Alberta, where the collapse of commodity prices has dragged down the once-booming economy, had the second-largest provincial decline in February, shedding 24,000 jobs.

The nature of the employment contraction is provoking concern. All of the job losses in February were in full-time work, which shed 111,000 positions. Full-time jobs tend to offer more stability and better benefits than part-time jobs, which edged up by 28,000 last month.

Job losses spread last month through many sectors, including those that saw strong growth through much of last year. Recent weakness in building permits and housing starts hit the construction sector hard last month, resulting in 43,000 net job losses, the second large decline in three months.

Electricians, painters, carpenters and other construction workers in the Greater Toronto area are starting to feel the pinch, union leaders say.

"You heard it from the developers themselves. They can't sell houses. And if they can't sell houses, they're not going to build them," said Barry Stevens, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Toronto Local 353.

About 600 of the union's 8,000 members are out of work, and Stevens worries that figure will grow in the coming months.

"We see all kinds of indicators of bad news. Has it hit us directly yet? Not as hard as it probably will in six or eight months if things don't start to pick up," said Steven Del Duca, director of public affairs for the carpenters' union.

Infrastructure projects, being discussed at all levels of government, need to start flowing, said Bill Nicholls, business manager of the painters and allied trades district council. "If we can get the stimulus package moving real fast from Ottawa, that will really save our butts going into mid- to late 2009. We really need that, and nothing's moving on it right now," he said.

Employment also fell in professional, scientific and technical services, mostly in legal, architecture, engineering and design services. Educational services and natural resources also saw declines.

But manufacturing, which saw massive employment losses in January, posted an increase of 25,000 positions last month. Much of that gain came in food products manufacturing, Statistics Canada said, adding that manufacturing employment had fallen by 104,000 positions from a year earlier.

Toronto's unemployment rate shot up half a percentage point last month to 9 per cent, compared with 8.2 per cent in Montreal and 5.7 per cent in Vancouver. On a three-month moving average, which smoothes out statistical bumps, Toronto's jobless rate was 8.3 per cent, compared with 7.8 per cent in January.

Canada can expect to lose 583,000 jobs and see the unemployment rate hit 10 per cent during the current downturn:

OTTAWA - The United States entered the recession first, but Canada's economy is falling faster now.

And if current trends continues, economists say, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty may rue their bold prognostications last week that Canada will exit the slump first and strongest.

Friday's employment and trade numbers paint a picture of an economy, if not literally in free-fall, certainly tumbling at an alarming rate with monthly job losses greater in proportion that those in the United States and as great as any Canada has seen since the Great Depression

Canada lost a whopping 129,000 jobs in January and followed that up with a surprisingly large 82,600 contraction in February - a two-month total that when the different sizes in population are factored in would translate into a loss or more than two million jobs stateside.

By comparison, the U.S. actually lost about 1.3 million in the two months.

Trade figures released late last week also did not flatter Canada.

While Canada's trade deficit grew to $993 million in January and exports fell nine per cent, in the U.S. the trade deficit narrowed more than expected to US$36 billion from US$39.9 billion the prior month.

The same trends appear to be forming in other key indicators, including retail sales, which have been dropping sharply in Canada but rising modestly south of the border despite the weakness in the housing market.

"The U.S. may have been the epicentre of this crisis but the collapse in world growth beyond is exceeding the pace of decline in the U.S.," says Scotia Capital economist Derek Holt.

"At the same time, we're starting to see possible turning points in some segments in the U.S. economy" while Canada and the rest of the world continues to slide downward.

Part of the explanation is that the United States, as Harper and Flaherty say, did indeed stumble into recession earlier. It suffered its first large jobs decline way back in January 2008 when the Canadian economy was still piling on workers on its way to a 33-year low 5.8 per cent jobless rate.

That means that while Canada is shedding jobs at a faster pace now, its job losses amount to only 1.7 per cent of the labour force before the decline began in November, while the U.S. has already seen its labour force shrink by 3.2 per cent.

The other difficulty in comparing economies that they remain out of sync, says Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist with BMO Capital Markets.

The United States appears to have suffered its steepest contraction in the fourth quarter of last year, when the economy shrank by 6.2 per cent. Canada looks to be going through its worst quarter now and is likely to experience a similar gross domestic product retreat this quarter, the January-March period.

That doesn't disprove the Conservative government's contention that indeed Canada will exit the recession first and stronger than the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, but the evidence is moving away from such a scenario.

The vast majority of private sector economists have discounted the Bank of Canada's official projection of a rebound that sees the economy surging to a 3.8 per cent advance next year, and many expect governor Mark Carney to revise that rosy forecast at the next opportunity in April.

The new consensus is forming around a sharper and longer lasting downturn this year and a more muted up-tick next year of about 1.5 per cent, similar to what is seen for the American economy.

TD Bank director of forecasting Beata Caranci wrote last week that Canada can expect to lose 583,000 jobs and see the unemployment rate hit 10 per cent during the current downturn, proportionally about the scenario economists see for the U.S.

That the two economies would wind up suffering similar levels of pain appears counter-intuitive given all the pluses in Canada's favour going into the downturn, positives that the International Monetary Fund reports should shelter the country where others are left defenceless.

"We have the strongest fiscal fundamentals in the G7, we have paid down debt, we're not creating a long-term permanent deficit... (and) that leads us late into the recession and early out of the recession," said Flaherty last week in defending his optimism.

All true, says Porter, but perhaps not as relevant as may appear.

Canada has positives that the U.S. lacks, but Canada also has two major Achilles heels that undercut its advantages.

"One is our extreme dependence in the auto sector, which represents about double the share of the U.S. economy, and the other is the dramatic plunge in commodity prices and that's obviously a big negative for Canada," he explained.

Porter said the most likely scenario is for the U.S. and Canada to emerge out of the recession together in "late, late 2008" and limp, rather than run, to recovery.

Canada is headed into a worse recession than anyone expected, one that could last until almost 2010:

Canada is headed into a worse recession than anyone expected, one that could last until almost 2010, said the country's top economists on Monday.

Staid financial watchers, who usually speak in measured tones, almost screamed the R word in two separate events Monday.

"At this point, if this kind of volatility keeps up, I think we're looking at a much more serious downturn than a mild recession that most of us are talking about," said Doug Porter, with BMO Capital Markets, at a meeting of senior economists in Toronto.

Canada faces a financial perfect storm of a sputtering U.S. economy, tumbling oil prices and falling domestic demand that will conspire to hurt the country's growth prospects for the next few months, they said.

"[We're] forecasting Canadian and U.S. recessions, plus 100 basis points of [Bank of Canada] and Fed cuts that could come at any time. This is not just made-in-U.S.A. weakness as Canada faces its own home-grown recession signals," Scotiabank economists Derek Holt and Karen Cordes said in a morning commentary.

A recession is commonly defined as two or more quarters of negative GDP growth.

If Scotiabank's forecast is correct, the Bank of Canada would cut its overnight lending rate to two per cent from three per cent and the U.S. Federal Reserve would chop the fed funds rate to one per cent from the current two per cent level.

In Toronto, these practitioners of the dismal science were decidedly more dour as to their expectations of the national economy even into the next year.

TD Bank's Don Drummond said he sees the economy shrinking until late 2009 and then only gradually recovering.

On the campaign trail for the Oct. 14 election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that while the country's economic fundamentals were relatively strong compared with other countries, Canada still might need to work up a strategy to fight a possible slowdown.

“We are also watching to make sure that any actions that are taken [elsewhere] don't have any rebound effects on us, so we are putting some secondary plans in place if that becomes necessary,” he said at an event Monday morning in Ottawa.

Global oil prices fell below $90 US a barrel at the start of the week; other commodity prices have likewise slipped in recent weeks in the face of slowing world economic growth.

Canadian housing prices have begun to slide as well, although the country will not face a home sector deterioration along the lines of what occurred in the United States, Scotiabank said.

Finally, exports to the United States will dry up as American demand for Canadian products evaporates, economists said.

Scotiabank currently has the Canadian economy growing 0.7 per cent this year and 1.4 per cent in 2009. This prediction, however, was made on Sept. 9, before the full force of the Wall Street financial meltdown was evident.

BMO Capital Markets expects the economy to grow 1.7 per cent in the July-to-September period but then contracting by 0.4 per cent in the final three months of the year.

Along with Scotiabank, BMO has Canada's economy growing in the 2009, up 1.0 per cent.

The economy is only going to much worse - the unemployment figures dont tell you the truth - 7.7 doesn't include self employed and under employed people - if they were to be counted the overall unemployment would be above 10% - and by 2010 - when economists think there will be recovery - in fact we will see a much more rapid deterioration and expect unemployment to top 20% - we will be in full blown depression by then.

Also expect more racism, public anger towards immigration (when the natives can't get jobs) and soical tensions and unrest.

Ontario in decline: From Canada's economic engine to clunker

Can Dalton McGuinty see the light and reverse the decay with his forthcoming budget?

By Paul Vieira, Financial PostMarch 21, 2009 12:01 PM

A month before Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal Ontario Premier, hit the election trail in the fall of 2007 to seek a second mandate, an ominous warning sign of the province's crumbling economic stature emerged that should have provided fodder for the campaign.

An analysis from leading Bay Street economist Dale Orr said Ontarians' standard of living had plummeted -- from a peak of 15% above the Canadian average in the mid-1980s to just more than 5%. Accompanying the analysis was a warning of further erosion by 2010.

Alas, the eye-opening report hardly generated buzz during the election campaign. Instead, most of the talk was about a Conservative proposal to provide government funding for faith-based schooling. Ontarians didn't warm to the idea and re-elected Mr. McGuinty's Liberals with another majority.

Reflecting today on that report, Mr. Orr said his nightmare scenario for Ontario has unfolded as envisaged. If anything, the situation in the province may be worse.

As the McGuinty government prepares to table its sixth provincial budget on Thursday, it does so knowing the province that was once the country's economic engine is now the clunker of the confederation. While former have-nots such as Saskatchewan post surpluses this fiscal year, Ontario is bleeding red ink--a cumulative two-year deficit of $18-billion.

Ontario's dramatic decline comes as no accident. It was decades in the making, based on a combination of mismanaged public finances and the ascent of emerging economies at the expense of high-cost manufacturing. Upon taking office in 2003, Mr. McGuinty moved to pour tens of billions of dollars into improving government services -- health care, education and social programs targeting the downtrodden -- while neglecting the changing economic landscape. To help finance this agenda, he raised corporate taxes and slapped a health-care levy on households. These moves, analysts say, helped cement Ontario as one of the least attractive places for companies to invest.

Analysts wonder whether the economic crisis is finally going to force Mr. McGuinty and Dwight Duncan, his Minister of Finance, to make tough choices on spending and undertake the kind of tax reform -- as displayed this week by New Brunswick-- that will help the province attract investment to offset heavy job losses in Ontario.

Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, said Thursday's budget presents a possible turning point for the province. "There is no doubt we are undergoing a period of transformation as some of the industries that have driven healthy gains in living standards are on the decline," said Mr. Burleton, who co-authored a report with TD chief economist Don Drummond last fall that called on the province to embrace a "sweeping" new economic vision.

"Given the sizeable deficit the province faces, that will put increasing pressure on the government to prioritize."

One of those priorities is for Mr. McGuinty to cease his preferred manner of dealing with difficulties in the industrial heartland -- funneling tens of millions of dollars to the manufacturing sector, particularly automotive, through targeted tax relief or direct subsidies.

"What the province should have been doing over the years was to make the province more flexible in attracting new businesses and not diverting resources into declining sectors," said Finn Poschmann, vice-president of research at the C. D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank that has been critical of Ontario's tax breaks for struggling sectors such as autos and forest products.

"Do you want to steer resources to the sectors where the outlook is positive and growing? Or do you want to divert resources from these stars, which are more likely to generate the long-term employment and wage growth that Ontario is accustomed to?"

The manufacturing sector, and its high-paying jobs, used to be the province's crown jewel. But as a component of Ontario's GDP, it has dropped from a peak of 23% in 2000 to roughly 18% on factors such as a richer Canadian dollar, higher energy costs and offshore competition. It is expected to fall further once the dust settles from this crisis.

The province was largely able to mask the decline in manufacturing through a combination of a booming housing market, a surge in public sector hiring and a robust financial services sector. The financial crisis, however, has exposed those flaws.

For the period starting in 2003, only Quebec and Nova Scotia have produced weaker growth than Ontario. Forecasts suggest Ontario was the only province whose economy shrank last year, and economists say it will record either the worst, or second-worst performance, among provinces this year. Scotia Capital, for instance, has Ontario's economy contracting 2.9% in 2009, and posting meagre growth of 1.4% in 2010, below the expected national average.

Of the roughly 295,000 jobs lost in Canada since October, nearly half have come from the province. The result? Unemployment in Ontario, at 8.7%, is now higher than it is the United States (8.1%) and above Quebec's 7.9% jobless rate-- the first time that has happened in three decades.

The news is not expected to get any better any time soon. "We believe that the unemployment rate in Canada's largest province should hit 10% by 2010, even if the automobile sector's restructuring plan works," said Sebastian Lavoie, an economist at Laurentian Bank Securities.

Further, Mr. Lavoie said wage growth in the province is destined to take a hit. In the past, companies were forced to offer comparable wages and benefits based on what the Canadian Auto Workers would negotiate with the Detroit car makers. But Mr. Lavoie said that will no longer be the case, with CAW accepting salary freezes and making concessions on perks such as cost-of-living-allowance.

The financial crisis has just exacerbated a growing trend, said Mary Webb, senior economist at Scotia Capital. Ontario's receipts from foreign-bound exports last year represent an 11.7% drop from a peak of $185.1-billion recorded in 2000. For the same time period, Quebec's receipts fell by just 2.9%. For the rest of Canada, excluding Ontario and Quebec, receipts have surged a whopping 72%.

Compounding Ontario's problem is the emergence of big deficit, fuelled in part by shrinking tax revenue and years of escalated program spending. Under Mr. McGuinty, program spending now stands at $23-billion per year more than when he took office in October, 2003, an increase of 36%. In fiscal year, 2007-08, program spending climbed more than 10% to $87.6-billion, compared with a 5.4% increase in tax revenue.

Observers note Mr. McGuinty's ascent to power in 2003 can be attributed to a desire for change among Ontarians after years of the hard-nosed, right-leaning Conservative regime that earned scorned for cutting government services.

Mr. McGuinty's two terms have been dominated by a push to restore spending on public goods such as education, health care, infrastructure and social services. Analysts say Mr. McGuinty was on the right track to bolster some key building blocks, such as post-secondary education.

To help pay for this, Mr. McGuinty raised the corporate tax -- to 14% from 12% --in his first budget.

"The balance of [McGuinty's] approach was not quite right," said Jack Mintz, public policy professor at the University of Calgary and renowned tax expert. "The problem was trying to [reinvest in public services] while at the same time trying to maintain a vibrant industrial sector."

Mr. Mintz and other analysts say Ontario's tax regime, as currently structured, is suffocating the province's ability to attract investment and rebuild the economy. Last year, Jim Flaherty, the federal Finance Minister, suggested the tax system was making Ontario the "last place" businesses wanted to invest.

Mr. Flaherty took lots of heat for that remark, but he was on to something. Mr. Mintz's research indicates the province's marginal effective tax rate on capital, which encompasses all levies slapped on investment in the province, stands at 35%, six points higher than the Canadian average, 29%.

Further, the Ontario rate ranks as the ninth-highest in the world, tied with Japan. Despite moves to eliminate capital tax in 2010, and other business tax reductions from the federal government, Ontario's marginal rate is expected to drop only three points to 32% by 2012 -- still higher than all provinces and exceeding the national average.

"Ontario will not be successful in retaining existing businesses and attracting new ones if its taxation system is not on sound competitive footing with other provinces and countries," said the TD report by Messrs. Burleton and Drummond.

There are signs that Mr. McGuinty is acknowledging the need to change. Despite previous opposition, he said in January the province would take a "long, hard look" at harmonizing its provincial sales tax with the GST.

As currently structured, Ontario's sales tax derives almost half of its revenue from taxing business inputs such as productivity-enhancingequipment. Harmonizing with the GST would shift the tax burden to households, but economists argue it would boost business investment and make Ontario more attractive. In a C. D. Howe research paper he released yesterday, Mr. Poschmann said putting an end to the "archaic" sales tax and harmonizing with the GST would move Ontario from a high-tax jurisdiction to a medium-tax jurisdiction by 2012, with the marginal rate on investment falling just over 10 percentage points.

A signal toward sales tax harmonization could be contained in Thursday's budget, although observers are hedging their bets given the potential voter backlash. Any further moves on taxation, whether business or personal, may have to wait given the province's monster deficit and an unwillingness to give up further revenue to fund public service initiatives.

"Ontario is going to be deeply challenged," Mr. Mintz said, "because it is going to be very hard for the government to do anything when you are so fiscally restrained-- unless it wants to make the deficit even bigger now."

Glen Hodgson, senior vice-president and chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada, said the needed tax reductions would not see the light of day until Ontario decides what to do about health-care spending, which is growing at an annual clip of 8% to 10% and is the single biggest expense item in the budget.

"This is a catalytic moment for the province," Mr. Hodgson said. "The light bulb has gone on, but it is not burning brightly yet. A lot of people would like to return to the Old World. But I think the Old World is gone -and that's the dilemma Ontario faces."

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MANITOBA, N.B. SET EXAMPLE:

As Ontario attempts to pull itself out of its economic quagmire, it can look to the provinces of Manitoba and New Brunswick for leadership.

While the recession is expected to hit every province, Manitoba comes out near the top in most forecasts as one of the country's better performers in 2009. In its outlook, the Conference Board of Canada projects slight growth in the province of 1%, powered by infrastructure projects and tax cuts.

Jack Mintz, public policy professor at the University of Calgary, said Manitoba was, along with Ontario, considered a high-tax jurisdiction for business investment. But the government has moved and Manitoba's marginal effective tax rate on investment dropped from 37% in 2007 to 33.8% last year. It is now scheduled to fall to 26.7% by 2012.

"It is on the high side, but it will be closer to the national average" in 2012,Mr. Mintz said. "From the point of view of people who need to make investment decisions now, they know these changes are in place over the next several years. So Manitoba looks more appealing."

Manitoba also benefits from having one of the most diversified economies in Canada. Roughly 30% of its economy is agriculture, which is more resilient to economic downturns. Further, Manitoba has a diversified manufacturing base with aerospace and buses playing key roles - and, unlike autos, demand for those products continues to be fairly solid.

It also has abundant, cheap hydroelectricity. In contrast, questions abound over the reliability of Ontario's power grid, especially in light of the 2003 blackout that blanketed the province and much of the U.S. northeast.

Meanwhile, analysts have applauded New Brunswick for taking aggressive steps on taxation this week in an effort to make the province more attractive for both investors and workers.

The main change is the replacement of the existing four-bracket personal income tax structure to a simpler two-bracket structure by 2012. The lowest rate will be 9% for workers earning less than $37,893. Beyond that threshold, a flat tax of 12% will be applied.

Perhaps more stunning, however, is that New Brunswick plans to lower its general corporate tax rate from 13% to 12%, effective this year, and all the way down to 8% by 2012 - the lowest in the country.

"The New Brunswick government appears to be relatively more proactive compared to other jurisdictions, taking bolder steps to improve its economic and fiscal roadmap," said Carlos Leitao, chief economist at Laurentian Bank Securities, in his analysis of the province's budget.

Source: Paul Vieira, Financial Post



ONE-TIME POWERHOUSE CAN'T KEEP UP WITH REST OF THE COUNTRY:

Ont. Export Receipt Drop

11.7%

Que. Export Receipt Drop

2.9%

Receipt Rise Rest Of Canada

72%

Ontario GDP Decline, 2009

2.9%

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RANKS OF WORKERS IN CANADA'S LARGEST PROVINCE TAKE IT ON THE CHIN:

Ontario Unemployment

8.7%

U.S. Unemployment

8.1%

Quebec Unemployment

7.8%

Ontario Unemployment, 2010

10%