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.
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.
posted by Tina Kyrtsos and Mario Ferrer at 3:44 PM
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