An economic tale of two cities: employment ups and downs.

It is a classic tale of two cities; two cities in Northern Ontario, one experiencing a reasonably strong job market, while the other is experiencing a definite decline marked by a rise in its unemployment rate.

Thunder Bay Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) economist Carrie Vescio says that Thunder Bay's economy is apparently keeping and possibly even creating jobs.

"Things are stable," Vescio says. "We've got a good employment rate, certainly much better in this third quarter than it was in the third quarter of 2002. We've got an employment rate of 64.4, up from a rate last year of 61.3 for the same time last year. That's the rate of working-age people who are actually employed and it's a much better indicator of what the underlying labour market is like, versus the unemployment rate."

She says the biggest change has occurred in the wholesale and retail trades, which experienced a 26 per cent growth over the same time last.

"That has been the force of the job growth," Vescio says. "It's probably a combination of higher staffing levels and new stores. We've had some big-box expansion."

Another area of significant growth has been in the construction trades. One of the primary drivers of that growth has been from the development of the new Thunder Bay Regional Hospital, which was built to replace the two current hospitals that sit on opposite ends of the city.

"That's a huge construction project that generated a lot of employment," she says. "It will be interesting to see. (The end of the project) will possibly have a huge impact (on employment numbers), but we'll be watching for that as we move into the winter, when we would expect employment to begin declining a bit anyway."

Vescio says youth out-migration continues to be a problem for many Northern Ontario communities and Thunder Bay has certainly been no exception. The current economic environment bodes well to reverse the out-migration trend.

"If we continue to see relatively good results in terms of employment, you might be able to expect that people won't leave as readily," she says. "One of the complaints you hear when you talk about youth out-migration is that youth don't feel there's any future for them. As long as we continue to grow jobs and remain relatively healthy (as an economy), perhaps that will have some impact on (out-migration)."

But a different story is unfolding in the northeast in Greater Sudbury where the unemployed are leaving town. People not able to find work in Sudbury are continuing to leave the community to find work, says Laurentian University economist Dr. Ron Lange reporting in the Institute of Northern Ontario Research and Development (INORD).

Lange reports that unemployment rose by 700 people in November, increasing from 8.7 per cent of the labour force to 8.8 per cent. Although the labour force was unchanged in October, the force has contracted by 1,700 workers over the past year. By comparison, the labour force in Thunder Bay has increased by 1,900 workers since October of last year. Similarly, employment in Sudbury has declined by 2,000 over the past year, while employment in Thunder Bay has increased by 2,100.

The unemployment rate for Sudbury rose by 0.1 of a percentage to 8.8 per cent, bringing the total increase over the past year to 0.6 of a percentage point, states Lange. For Ontario as a whole, the overall trend has continued to improve relative to Sudbury, with unemployment as a percentage of the labour force falling from 7.3 per cent to 7.0 per cent in October. Similarly, the national unemployment rate dropped 0.4 of a percentage point to 7.6 per cent.

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Conversely, the participation rate for Sudbury at 62.0 per cent has dropped by 0.9 of a percentage point since October of last year. The participation rate in Sudbury is noticeably lower than the Ontario rate of 68.4 per cent and the national rate of 67.5 per cent. The participation rate for Sudbury is the lowest among the metropolitan areas in Ontario and continues to diverge from the rates for Ontario and Canada as whole.

"The continued downward trend in employment for Sudbury has been concentrated in the service sector, with a decline of about 3,500 jobs for the year ending in October," states Lange. "The job losses have been concentrated in trade-commerce, educational services and other services."

www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca

By ANDREW WAREING

Northern Ontario Business