Thomson report

I have known Will Gow, the founder and president of the CBD Network Career Group, for over twenty years. He sits on my Executive Roundtable.

I sat down with him in his office the other day.

Will, can give our readers a brief background on your company CBD Network CBD Career Group?

“Since 1998 we have provided a successful Career Management transition process for over 5000 Okanagan skilled and professionals. It was fortunate that the Federal Government years ago saw the value of our business model and it has proven to be the right decision. We plan to expand our services more online with two new web sites ready for April 1, 2010, CBD Careers which will be an employment matching site for the Okanagan and a very unique web site called AFTER THE APPLAUSE, focused on former amateur and competitive athletes. We will let you know how we are developing this business.”

What are key factors affecting our local job market?

“On the growth side we are all aware of the new commercial, road and housing construction going on within the Central Okanagan. We know that the College and University enrollments have increased and both organizations are expanding their facilities. What I personally hear from the business community is a very cautious optimism, but this results in a slow growth for new hires. The Government stimulus strategies of providing shared funding for community projects improvements with the Employment Insurance system and training programs have all helped to keep our economy healthy.

The job/labour market has a number of factors that could affect the unemployment rate. We have workshare agreements with hundreds of companies in the Thompson/Kootenay region, which are in place to support the companies through challenging times. Many individuals with the difficulty of finding work in 2009 went into training programs or certification programs. They will be job searching in 2010. Alberta traditionally was a place for many in the Okanagan to find work until they could return to the Okanagan, but Alberta has not had the job opportunities as in the past.

As we discuss this in the middle of March, both the Federal and Provincial Governments are facing deficits.”

What is your best guess for the Okanagan business and the job market in the near future?

“Previous statements by me indicated it will get a little worse before we return to 4-5% unemployment rates. We will see a labour shortage again by March 2012 due to demographic changes. We have more people leaving the labour market every day due to retirement (2011 is when the age 65 baby boomer hits). This combined with growth in the regional economy will result in shortages in sectors such as trades and health care. The high tech sector locally needs well-qualified people, and you can look at the club penguin site to see over 2 dozen-job openings.

If you want a glimpse at the future of jobs, read the February 2010 report by Miner Management for the Province of Ontario. Quote “we face a future of large numbers of unskilled workers looking for jobs that require skills they do not possess and a large number of jobs that will go unfilled.”

We could face in the Okanagan in the next few years jobs going unfilled simply because the knowledge base is not in our labour pool.

We need the leadership now to make sure our regional job and labour pool have access to the right training and certification to secure those jobs.

On a final note - we continue to monitor the salary and wages with our client group and we do not see any changes over the past year and half.

Over 60% of the clients find work between 40-60k per annum. The 40% who fall within the administrative, accounting and retail range from 31k to 40k. Only 40% of the clients secure a job with a benefit program and this has been unchanged for three years. We have seen a slow increase of 20% of the clients exceeding 65k per annum.”