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There were two fields of study (life sciences and computer, mathematics and physical sciences) that accounted for the highest proportions of doctoral graduates who left Canada for the United States. The vast majority of doctoral graduates in both fields had a job waiting for them in the United States.

factor most commonly cited for attracting doctoral graduates to the United States was the quality of the research facilities or the commitment to research

But there's good reason to believe that the labor market won't be keeping pace. Rather than an aberration, high unemployment may be an enduring feature of the United States' economy.

Even if the December rate of job creation continues, it will be 2014 before unemployment is down to 5 percent.

Finding ways to deal with an impending labour shortage will top the list for Edmonton's Chamber of Commerce this year, says incoming chair Bernie Kollman

The chamber board will also visit Saskatoon in April to talk with business leaders there about what they are doing to engage their aboriginal community. "They have done some creative things with their aboriginal population and workforce development, and we'd like to see that," Kollman said.

For decades now, at least one-third of the city's 12,000 employees, mainly office workers and professionals, have had a deal where they can work a bit of extra time each day, then take off every second Friday as a holiday.

The argument is that you have to do something like this to make the job attractive or else you won't be able to keep staff. But I can't think of anybody I know outside of government that gets every second Friday off. Can you?

've always thought it's not necessary to retain staff by giving them every second Friday off. ... I'm not buying the logic of the policy."

Almost every government, from Beijing to Ottawa, is nowadays forced to use immigration to fill job shortages, at the same time as it devotes expensive social programs to helping the jobless. This, to put it mildly, has been creating tensions.

34 per cent of corporations now regard “shortage of skilled labour” as their main business constraint

another 13 per cent regard their biggest problem as “shortage of un/semi-skilled labour.”

Yet it's worth thinking about why it's absurd to argue that every state should try to subsidise up a local film industry but not crazy to support local universities. Certainly, there are huge efficiencies being sacrificed by duplicating administrative capacity all around the country. And academics benefit from close proximity to those working on similar problems; the efficacy of research is reduced when it's spread more thinly around the country. If America had fewer, bigger states, it would probably have fewer, bigger universities, and that might well be a very good thing.

The joke, I'm sure I don't need to explain, is that not every state can succeed by poaching productions from other states, since what's made in one state can't be made in another. But that's not quite right. A subsidy allows a business to cut prices and artificially raise demand. Given generous enough subsidies, many more movies would be made, and each state could, potentially, have a thriving film industry. This is how higher education works, more or less. New Mexico has state universities just like California and Iowa and Alaska. These schools are understandably viewed as foundations of the local economies in which they're located, as well as important cultural institutions. And we obviously view the subsidisation of the production of college graduates as a worthwhile contribution to long-run growth, again, understandably.

[Former New Mexico Governor Bill] Richardson says that the film and TV subsidy has brought "nearly $4 billion into our economy over eight years" and has created 10,000 jobs. By "our," he means New Mexico. He says every state should emulate this success.

Performance reviews corrupt the system by getting employees to focus on pleasing the boss, rather than on achieving desired results. And they make it difficult, if not impossible, for workers to speak truth to power.

performance preview. Instead of top-down reviews, both boss and subordinate are held responsible for setting goals and achieving results. No longer will only the subordinate be held accountable for the often arbitrary metrics that the boss creates. Instead, bosses are taught how to truly manage, and learn that it’s in their interest to listen to their subordinates to get the results the taxpayer is counting on.

Instead of the bosses merely handing out A’s and C’s, they work to make sure everyone can earn an A. And the word goes out: “No more after-the-fact disappointments. Tell me your problems as they happen; we’re in it together and it’s my job to ensure results.”

A hopeful hiring climate is expected for Edmonton in the spring, but employers aren't as optimistic as they were to start the year.

The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, released Tuesday, found that 21 per cent of Edmontonarea employers plan to hire for the upcoming quarter (April to June), while nine per cent expect cutbacks, for a net outlook of 12 per cent

Sixty-nine per cent of employers will maintain their current staffing levels and one per cent were unsure of their hiring intentions.

Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren’t open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America’s children. These days, brilliant women become surgeons and investment bankers — and 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores). The figure is from a study by McKinsey & Company, “Closing the Talent Gap.”

Recent scholarship suggests that good teachers, even kindergarten teachers, increase their students’ earnings many years later. Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University found that an excellent teacher (one a standard deviation better than average, or better than 84 percent of teachers) raises each student’s lifetime earnings by $20,000. If there are 20 students in the class, that is an extra $400,000 generated, compared with a teacher who is merely average.

Consider three other countries renowned for their educational performance: Singapore, South Korea and Finland. In each country, teachers are drawn from the top third of their cohort, are hugely respected and are paid well (although that’s less true in Finland). In South Korea and Singapore, teachers on average earn more than lawyers and engineers, the McKinsey study found.

killed temporary foreign workers certified in Alberta’s optional trades can now apply directly to the government for permanent residency instead of having to apply with their employers, the province announced

Alberta is allowed to nominate 5,000 people. With limited numbers, Alberta’s focus will be on nominating people who currently work in permanent jobs

“We have to make sure we are ready for the coming labour shortages as economies around the world are competing for the same skills and the same people. This change will allow Alberta to nominate the most qualified and experienced tradespeople working in occupations that are needed in Alberta.”

The US economy did not have a conspicuous unemployment problem until the crisis of 2008 because the non-tradable sector absorbed the bulk of the expanding labor force. That pace of employment growth now appears unsustainable. Government and health care alone accounted for almost 40% of the net increment in employment in the entire economy from 1990 to 2008. Fiscal weakness, a resetting of real-estate values, and lower consumption all point to the potential for long-term structural unemployment.

Restoring elements of manufacturing competitiveness is hard. Once skilled labor, training programs, and technical institutions in specific industries are gone, it is difficult to get them back. Long-term policy should include an evolving assessment of competitive strength and employment potential across sectors and at all levels of human capital, with the goal of encouraging market outcomes that achieve social objectives.

Canada's oil patch is scrambling to bring back foreign workers, desperate to avoid a repeat of the labour crunch that clobbered the industry three years ago.

In 2008, oil sands capital spending hit about $18-billion (Canadian). Projections by Calgary-based investment dealer Peters & Co. suggest industry will surpass that level by next year. By 2014, the firm forecasts capital spending will exceed 2008 levels by nearly 25 per cent.

The Alberta government says the province will be short 77,000 workers in the next 10 years. The Petroleum Human Resources Council has predicted up to 130,000 new workers will be needed in the coming decade, both to staff new jobs and replace retirements.

Employees who volunteer have a better attitude towards their normal work. This is a documented fact that’s hard to deny. For example, they’re more likely to actually go to work, even if they have an excuse not to.

Employees who volunteer have a stronger commitment to the company. Also a well-researched fact. For example, they’re more likely to agree that they’re “proud to tell [their] friends what organization [they] work for.”

Employees who volunteer might be dodging their regular commitments. If they’re not interested in work, they might be volunteering in order to get away from it. Follow up with volunteers, and make sure that they’re still engaged in their regular jobs.

At a time when America is concerned about excess housing supply and anxious to boost its innovative capacity it is madness that so many willing immigrants, including high-skilled workers, including those educated in America, find it difficult to impossible to gain permission to work in the country on a stable, long-term basis.

The lump of labour fallacy is seductive, and in times of economic hardship it becomes very difficult to convince people that more competition for scarce jobs will make their lives better. Here again it is clear that weak labour markets are the enemy of liberalism, and those concerned for the future of free markets should do what they can to alleviate that weakness.

immigrants are people and they deserve a chance to move to maximise the return to their skills. When an immigrant moves to a rich country, that increases his or her welfare and boosts the productive potential of that country, which is good for everyone.

What politicians are doing is creating the illusion that they are creating jobs by short-term fixes that actually weaken the region’s ability to compete,

In Alberta, outside of health care, the most diverse workforce is found in the food and hospitality sectors

approximately 10% of Alberta’s workforce, or over 180,000 people were working in the tourism and hospitality industry, and a projected increase of new jobs was 11,000 by 2011.

According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s research on Canada’s workforce training,[5] the hospitality industry had the lowest training budget of all other industry sectors with an average of $213 per employee in formal expenses and $792 in informal training costs.

Both SFMade and its New York cousin, Made in N.Y.C., are increasingly able to share success stories of how manufacturing has developed new models for doing business in the 21st century. The monolithic single-industry model has evolved as manufacturers see the benefits of being smaller and paying attention to how patterns of consumption, ownership and use are shifting.

“For decades we have developed a culture of disposability — from consumer goods to medical instruments and machine tools. To fuel economic growth, marketers replaced longevity with planned obsolescence — and our mastery of technology has given birth to ever-accelerating unplanned obsolescence. I think there is increasing awareness that this is no longer sustainable on the scale we have developed.”

“It’s not some cute cottage industry,” she says, referring to the prevailing tendency to view “local” as something generally limited to cupcakes, jam or “My Mom Went to _____ And All I Got Was This T-Shirt.” The “number one thing we do,” Sofis continues, “is facilitate new connections.”

Jobs in Alberta's oilpatch could double over the next decade if commodity prices remain strong, leading to a labour crunch rivalling that of the last boom cycle, according to an industry council.

Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada warns the shortage of skilled workers already being felt across the Canadian oilpatch will deepen, regardless of commodity prices and activity levels in the oil and gas industry.

"We are headed toward a severe labour shortage, regardless of future energy prices and industry activity," said chief executive Cheryl Knight.