THE WILDS OF MIAMI ARE CALLING AND NO, WE DON’T MEAN NIGHTLIFE {page 15}
MEDS TO ORDER
CITY DEBATES CLINIC RULES {page 4}
LONDON
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 www.metronews.ca News worth sharing.
London job outlook is ‘weak,’ economist says
ANGELA MULLINS/METRO
Forest City lagging other urban centres in job prospects Nationwide, 2,300 jobs were created in January, report says ANGELA MULLINS/METRO
ANGELA MULLINS
@METRONEWS.CA
Three people are in line for every job opening in London. That’s the gist of a new Conference Board of Canada report that shows Forest City as one of only two Ontario cities where employment prospects are down (St. Catharines-Niagara is the other). The number of job openings has been steadily declining since late last year, the report shows. “Confidence is down in London and you see that translated into (fewer) job advertisements,” said economist Alan Arcand, author of the report. Simply put: “I would characterize the London labour market as weak.” The report hardly comes as news to Dorothy Nauss, a resource specialist at the London Employment Centre’s Northland Mall branch. While the office walls are practically lined with advertisements for openings, the quality of available jobs started tumbling several years ago and continues to spiral downward, Nauss said. “Also, the pay. Money is really bad,” Nauss said Tuesday. “It’s minimum-wage-type jobs, service industry. That’s all we have. Everything else is out of town. When a manufacturing job comes up, it’s
Edgar Budigi, 25, checks out job listings at the London Employment Help Centre.
The number of metro10 politan areas nationwide where job prospects are declining, according to the Conference Board of Canada. just flooded.” The Conference Board of Canada ranks job prospects in metropolitan areas by analyzing the number of positions posted on 79 job boards across the country. London has been in the doldrums for some time, while Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor and Kitchener are beginning to pull out of slumps, the report shows. But Arcand said Londoners might want to prepare for an “uptick” when February data are released next week. The city’s unemployment rate, which includes St. Thomas, fell to nine per cent from 9.6 between December and January.
Maria LeBreton, an administrative assistant at the London Employment Help Centre in Northland Mall, posts job openings on Tuesday on a board inside her office. LeBreton updates the board regularly to give job seekers the best possible taste of what’s available in the tight labour market.