To streamline the complex analysis governments need to undertake, MGI offers a new framework of six sector groups that share characteristics and respond to similar approaches to enhancing competitiveness. They are (1) infrastructure services; (2) local services; (3) business services; (4) research and development (R&D)-intensive manufacturing; (5) manufacturing; and (6) resource-intensive industries. In each of these groups, MGI documents how competitiveness levers vary and how policy has influenced competitiveness in each. These six categories provide a useful framework for understanding what determines competitiveness in different kinds of industries and what tangible actions governments and businesses can take to improve competitiveness

Policy makers pinning their hopes on cutting-edge “clean” technologies to create jobs on a large scale are likely to be disappointed. Innovation in R&D-intensive sectors can play a vital role, enabling productivity gains and consumer benefits in the economy more broadly—think IT. But such sectors alone are simply too small to make an economy-wide difference in growth and employment.

In the past, it has too often been hit or miss because it was based solely on a macroeconomic view—whether one country is more competitive than another.

The quest for new jobs, for example, is much more likely to bear fruit in large local-business and household-services sectors, where regulation can have the most direct impact.

emphasised the difference between routine and non-routine tasks. Many middle-skill positions—like factor line worker or back office clerk—are of the routine sort that can easily be either offshored or replaced by robot or computer programme. At either end of the skill spectrum, however, are a range of non-routine tasks—like design (at the high-skill end) or janitorial (low-skill) work. Employment opportunities for these positions have risen.

a key question is: what becomes of middle-skill workers? Do they find new work? As low-skill employees? And what does that do to the national income distribution? Thankfully, policymakers in Washington are debating these questions carefully and preparing a range of sensible responses. Right?

Employment in Alberta increased for the second consecutive month, up 14,000 in February. As a result, the unemployment rate edged down by 0.2 percentage points to 5.7%.

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.”

All labour market growth will be due to immigrants. If businesses want to grow, they will need to hire immigrants. But those immigrants need a chance to learn English.

Measurement of capacity building frequently involves the use of a logic model and self-assessments, which can be useful in helping to focus evaluation and in gathering individual perceptions.  Two drawbacks to the use of the logic model for evaluation are firstly that funder output focus may not match actual organizational goals and outcomes, and secondly that the complex relationships between components in the system are over-simplified or ignored. Self-assessments alone are problematic in that they focus solely on the perception of individuals and lack objectivity because they may be influenced by: effort, bias, discrimination, interpersonal conflict in the organization, desire to avoid scrutiny, fear of reprisal or personal gain.

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.

The best poker bots in the world include those from the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group, which is nearly 20 years old. Professor Michael Bowling, who has led the group since 2005, says the breakthrough came in 2003, when researchers decided to change their approach, shifting away from the methodology used to build chess bots.

Does higher productivity destroy jobs? Sometimes, but only in the very short term, considering US economic performance over the past 80 years. In fact, every ten-year rolling period but one since 1929 has seen increases in both US productivity and employment. Even on a rolling annual basis, 69 percent of periods have delivered both productivity and jobs growth (Exhibit 1). Over the long term, apparently, it’s a fallacy to suggest that there’s a trade-off between unemployment and productivity. These are among the key findings of the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Growth and renewal in the United States: Retooling America’s economic engine. We are optimistic about productivity because it isn’t only about efficiency; it is no less about expanding output through innovations that improve the performance, quality, or value of goods and services. What’s more, even productivity solely from efficiency gains can, in the aggregate, lead to higher employment if the cost savings are put back to work elsewhere in the economy. Companies can pass on those savings to their customers in the form of lower prices, leaving households and businesses with more money to spend elsewhere. They can also reinvest savings from more efficient operations in new job-creating activities.

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.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. That’s why, in an appearance Friday with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Obama declared that “If we want more good news on the jobs front then we’ve got to make more investments in education.”

But what everyone knows is wrong.

technological progress is actually reducing the demand for highly educated workers.

if the new normal was slow growing employment, the new new normal is a slow growing labour force. Put the two together and the unemployment decouples from the overall health of the economy. Why? Perhaps the Great Recession has permanently diminished work opportunities for big swathes of the work force, in particular prime-age men. Perhaps America is now experiencing an echo of what older Europe and Japan already have: a demographically driven slowdown in potential growth. Or perhaps it’s one of those temporary statistical mysteries that will disappear soon.