Windsor, a former automotive town that has been forced to reinvent itself, is forecast to have the fastest growing metropolitan economy in 2011

it was named one of the top seven intelligent communities in the world

Windsor: The former automotive town has been forced to reinvent itself, and is projected to have Canada's highest growth rate. 3.5%

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.”

Technology is eating jobs—and not just obvious ones like toll takers and phone operators. Lawyers and doctors are at risk as well.

Forget blue-collar and white- collar. There are two types of workers in our economy: creators and servers. Creators are the ones driving productivity—writing code, designing chips, creating drugs, running search engines. Servers, on the other hand, service these creators (and other servers) by building homes, providing food, offering legal advice, and working at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Many servers will be replaced by machines, by computers and by changes in how business operates. It's no coincidence that Google announced it plans to hire 6,000 workers in 2011.

Government of Canada consults on immigrant skilled worker program

To stay competitive globally, we have to make sure the skilled immigrants we choose are the ones that we need, and the most likely to succeed when they get here,” said Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. “Research points to some key changes that will help us meet those goals.”

Industry officials in Alberta are questioning the federal government's plan to cut back on visas for skilled workers, saying the province's expanding economy needs more employees.

Ed Stelmach. "I know that they are reflecting some of the issues in Ontario. But we are in a completely different position."

Overseas visa targets 2010 2011 % change Federal skilled worker visas 69,915 55,900 - 20.0 Provincial nominees visas 36,650 40,300 + 9.0 Total economic class visa 161,630 151,000 - 6.6

The reaction was that Edmonton's southern "partner" in the oil industry -Calgary -began to attract the head offices of various oil companies, and consequently outside business interests, including American ones.

In the new global economy, however, Edmonton is developing a reputation as the centre of other industries -industries that cannot necessarily be physically located within the downtown core.

David Whitson, a political science professor at the University of Alberta, notes that Edmonton has started to become a high-tech hub, including the pharmaceuticals industry.

10,000 new construction jobs, 600 engineering jobs and hundreds of new operating positions.

the rise in structural unemployment by cause in the latter paper. The authors find that skills mismatch is causing very little of the increase. Rather, unemployment insurance is responsible for most of it, with productivity improvements making up the rest.

The province of Alberta is a hotbed for Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs). According to 2009 Statistics, Alberta alone has 65,748 TFWs. On a national scale, Alberta holds 23 percent of Canada’s TFWs.  The number of TFWs in Alberta has grown by 5% since 2007, where the province held 18 percent of the national total.

Recruiters/Labour Brokers act in ill faith towards Temporary Foreign Workers

Changes to the Federal Labour Market Opinions (LMO’s) have increased red tape for TWFs.

we usually treat productive capacity as fixed, and worry about making full use of it

Turnover in the labour market is almost as rapid. In a previous Economy Lab post, I noted that the typical flows in and out of employment are much larger than the net flows. Roughly a quarter of a million people enter and leave the workforce each month; the net change in December was an increase of 22,000.

These are not all the same people going in and out of unemployment: roughly half of those employed have been with their current employer for five years or less. Even among workers 55 and older, 40 per cent have had the same job for ten years or less. The data from the 1970s are similar, so this mobility is not a new phenomenon.

vision statemen

1. Unleashing innovation.2. Leading in learning.3. Competing in the global marketplace.4. Making Alberta the best place to live, work and visit.

top strategies:• A Learning Alberta – basing Alberta’s growth on the knowledge industry• Securing Tomorrow’s Prosperity: Sustaining the Alberta Advantage – transition to a knowledge-based and value-added economy• A Place to Grow – linking rural economic development with educational attainment levels• Strengthening Relationships – Working strategically to strengthen partnerships between First Nations, Metis and Aboriginal peoples.• Supporting Immigrants, Immigration to Alberta and Integrating Skilled Immigrants into the Alberta Economy – attraction, development and retention of immigrants into Alberta• Growing our Future – integrating life-sciences strategies into innovation and some value-added sectors

Job Recovery Rx: Worker Skill Training

Neal Peirce’s latest Citistates column suggests that the solution to the U.S.’s impending talent shortage lies in targeted training programs in the country’s metro regions.

Cities are beginning to experiment with innovative pilot programs, including those like “Chicago Career Tech,” an intensive six-month, six-day-a-week course that retrains middle-class workers for technology careers.

Calgary's mayor tells Marcus Gee how he plans to realize Jane Jacobs' vision on the Prairies. He just has to convince the developers

But can he get Calgary to buy in? To an outsider, at least, sprawling, car-dependent Calgary seems to be an unlikely place to realize his Jane Jacobs-inspired ideas about livable cities.

Building Up: Making Canada's Cities Magnets for Talent and Engines of Development, he argued that the successful city of the future will be a place in which: "People live where they work and play. Density is high. Public transit is a preferred choice. Young people can afford to live downtown. Classes and socio-economic backgrounds are mixed ...