Canada's hottest jobs

Canada's Hottest Jobs - Forbes.com:
Nothing generates jobs like a thriving economy.

Witness Canada. Strong growth over the past couple of years has seen the country's unemployment rate fall to a 32-year low.

Gross domestic product grew at an annualized 3.8% in the first quarter of this year, following 2.8% growth in 2005. The unemployment rate was down to 6.1% in June, having fallen to 6.7% in 2005 from 7.2% the previous year and a peak of 7.7% in 2002.

Click here to see some of Canada's hottest jobs.
In effect, the economy is running at full capacity. In the first half of this year, employment growth ran at twice the rate of a year earlier. Labor markets have become so tight in parts of the economy that the central bank, the Bank of Canada, has become concerned that it is starting to stoke inflation.

The energy and commodities sectors have been powering this growth, along with high levels of consumer spending, domestic capital investment by businesses, and home building.

A rising Canadian dollar, which hit a 30-year high against its U.S. counterpart in June, at 91 U.S. cents, will slow the growth of the country's goods and services exports; the U.S. buys 85% of Canada's exports and more than half of its manufactured goods. A rule of thumb is that Canadian manufacturing costs become increasingly uncompetitive with those in the U.S. the further the Canadian dollar rises above 84 U.S. cents.

Yet, high global prices for oil, gas and other commodities and the strength of domestic spending will keep the economy buoyant. The economy is forecast to expand by 3.5% for the full year.

All of this makes for a job seeker's market, except in the manufacturing sector, where employment has already fallen by 5% over the past two years. That trend looks set to continue, especially in the provinces of the Atlantic seaboard, Quebec and Ontario, though the greater diversification of the Ontarian economy is mitigating the loss of manufacturing jobs there.

Potential job seekers should head West--though not too far; stop at the prairies--at Alberta, the epicenter of the country's energy and natural resources industries, or to a lesser extent, at wheat- and uranium-producing Saskatchewan.

Alberta's booming economy, based on Canada's oil capitals of Edmonton and Calgary, is growing at twice the rate of the federal economy. All ten Canadian oil and gas companies on the Forbes 2000 list of the world's largest companies are headquartered in Calgary, including EnCana (nyse: ECA - news - people ), Petro-Canada (nyse: PCZ - news - people ), Enbridge (nyse: ENB - news - people ), Suncor Energy (nyse: SU - news - people ) and Canadian Natural Resources (nyse: CNQ - news - people ). The same growth rate is true for the province's retail sales, home building rates and business investment.

The provincial government, though fiscally conservative and now running budget surpluses, is spending evermore of the wealth Alberta's natural resources have brought it, especially on health care and large-scale infrastructure. The province's per capita public spending is the highest in Canada. Along with natural resources, public administration and health care have been leading Alberta's employment gains.

Wages, too, are growing twice as fast there as in the country as a whole. That reflects an Albertan unemployment rate of 3% and a new-jobs growth rate in the first half of the year, 3.3%, that is three times that of the national economy.

Our list of the hottest jobs in Canada, which includes skilled trades, nurses and engineers, reflects those trends. Health care jobs are growing fastest in Ontario and Quebec, for example. The list is based on a national annual survey by employment services firm Manpower (nyse: MAN - news - people ).

In a separate survey, its quarterly "Global Economic Outlook," Manpower also found that the new-hiring intentions of Canadian bosses in both the public and private sectors remain positive and stable. For their part, Canadian employees feel a quarter more secure in their jobs than they did in November last year.

Toronto Star: Canada lags in career training

Canada lags in career training
Jul. 12, 2006. 01:00 AM
CAROL GOAR


If someone intervenes at the right time, an academically gifted young woman who is reluctant to aim higher than her parents expect can be gently dissuaded from going to hairdressing school.

If someone intervenes in the right way, a young man who's a whiz with computers, but hates writing essays, can be spared the misery of trying to become a lawyer.

If someone acts soon enough, a kid whose grades start dropping can be prevented from making a bad choice; a teenager who is about to drop out can be convinced to give school another try; a youth who is drifting aimlessly can be pointed in a positive direction.

The trouble is, that "someone" may not be there — or may be too busy dealing with drugs, violence or students' personal crises to step in.

"Most young Canadians don't have adequate access to career development services to help them choose the best paths to a successful working life," says a report just released by Canadian Policy Research Networks. "There is limited awareness of the benefits of career development and no national career development strategy."

The Ottawa think-tank took its cue from young people. It invited 150 of them to participate in a national dialogue last fall. One of the frustrations that bubbled up was that they didn't know where to turn for advice about the job market, didn't know how to navigate the passage from school to work, and didn't think kids going into the trades were getting a fair break.

The study confirmed most of that. It also found that the quality of the services that do exist varies immensely.

A generation ago, this might have been acceptable. Baby boomers generally found their way into a career by luck, chance or trial and error. Guidance counsellors were considered a frill in many schools.

Today's kids don't have the luxury of blundering into the right job and staying put. Their working life will consist of a succession of careers. For them, finding and training for employment will be an essential skill.

That is why the report recommends that career development begin no later than Grade 6. Waiting until late high school is neither fair nor realistic, says co-author Donnalee Bell. It isolates students from the outside world and puts too much onus on parents, who lack the tools, to provide them with up-to-date information.

The study also suggests that every teacher be required to take at least one course in career development. That way, he or she will be able to get students started on the right track and steer them around avoidable obstacles.

One of the think-tank's strongest proposals is that the provinces share their knowledge. Until 2003, no attempt had ever been made to bring them together. It was left to a voluntary organization, the Canadian Career Development Foundation, to convene a national symposium on workforce development and lifelong learning.

Finally, it urges policy-makers to look beyond the formal education system. High-school dropouts desperately need training opportunities. University and college graduates often need help finding work in their field. And adults whose skills are obsolete or minimal need to know how to go about improving their qualifications.

Bell doesn't know how much all of this would cost, but concedes the price would be substantial. On the other hand, she points out, it costs a huge amount to squander talent, let kids fall by the wayside and allow the gap between rich and poor to widen.

Other countries see the value of investing in career development.

Norway requires that every school offer students individual guidance in drawing up a career plan, beginning in elementary school. All teachers are involved in the process. Work experience is incorporated into the curriculum.

Scotland has the largest publicly funded organization in the world dedicated to all-age career planning. The aim of Careers Scotland is to produce an economically resilient population, capable of adjusting to changes in technology and global markets.

Australia links local employers to students, aged 15 to 19, to give young people a taste of working life, give educators feedback about how well they are preparing students for employment, and give businesses a chance to build a relationship with teenagers in their community.

Alberta and Quebec are the Canadian leaders. Alberta has just put in place a comprehensive program to ensure that citizens of all ages have access to career development services. Quebec has overhauled its education system, integrating career counselling into its curriculum from the earliest grades.

Ontario is one of the laggards. The average high-school guidance counsellor, who handles everything from discipline problems to teen pregnancy, is responsible for 500 students. At the elementary level, the ratio is 1 to 5,000.

A few school boards have broken away from the pack, but most are waiting for leadership from Queen's Park.

It's a tough job market out there. No young person should enter it blindly.

(The study is available at http://www.cprn.com).