Tag: Employment

Media’s slant on Alberta economy helped Kenney’s cause

Media’s slant on Alberta economy helped Kenney’s cause

Posted by | Apr 18, 2019 | |

The fact it was predictable didn’t make the election result in Alberta any easier to take. Despite distant echoes of homophobia and misogyny, current allegations of electoral corruption and a clutch of dodgy candidates, Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party won in a landslide. Albertans threw out Rachel Notley, a leader widely admired, and replaced her with someone many people, for good reason, can’t abide. A reason for this, we were told repeatedly, is the dreadful state of the Alberta economy. As many would have it, since world oil prices started to fall in 2014, Alberta’s been in...

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Jobs up overall but Nova Scotia wages lag and cultural industries sag

Jobs up overall but Nova Scotia wages lag and cultural industries sag

Posted by | Nov 2, 2018 | |

There was some positive news for the Nova Scotia economy in Friday’s release of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) from Statistics Canada. The increase in employment that began last December continued last month, with employment up nearly 10,000 from October 2017. However, any celebration of the job growth should be tempered by an earlier report from Statscan – last week’s Survey of Employment, Payroll and Hours. That survey, which provides a lot more detail than the LFS, reveals a couple of trends that could provide grist for the mill for critics of the Nova Scotia government’s approach on two...

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N.S. unemployment rate hits new low but jobs picture still troubling

N.S. unemployment rate hits new low but jobs picture still troubling

Posted by | May 16, 2018 | |

It seems to have passed unnoticed by the news media and the government spinners but the monthly labour force survey released last Friday revealed Nova Scotia hitting a milestone – the unemployment rate in April was 6.7 per cent. That’s the lowest it has been since Statistics Canada began reporting comparable data in 1976. Considering that double-digit unemployment was the norm in Nova Scotia for most of the 42 years covered by the data set, the low rate – part of a downward trend that started last fall – may once have been considered a big deal. The fact...

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Job losses: Don’t just stand there – do nothing!

Job losses: Don’t just stand there – do nothing!

Posted by | May 10, 2015 | , |

Politicians who say one thing about an issue while in opposition and something altogether different in government are as common as robins in the springtime. But just because that sort of flip-flopping  has become a political cliche doesn’t make it acceptable. Take the issue of jobs. Back when they were in opposition, the Liberals met every negative monthly  jobs report from Statistics Canada with a press release critical of the Dexter government. Not that such Liberal communiques came out every month. In 2012 the StatsCan monthly reports split 50-50, six up and six down, and the Liberals let the...

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Richard Starr, The man behind the Point

About Richard

RICHARD STARR has had careers as a journalist, public servant, broadcaster, political staffer and freelance policy adviser. He is author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, appearing in everything from Atlantic Insight to Atlantic Progress. A lifelong student of Maritime history, Starr is married to playwright and former MP Wendy Lill. They live in Dartmouth.

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