Low unemployment, strong job growth across all sectors, growing productivity—the Canadian Prairies, led by Alberta, are ahead of the entire North American continent with respect to the competitiveness of their labour market. Taking stock of these new rankings.
The Prairies, job champions
Alberta has the top-performing labour market in the country, says the Fraser Institute’s Measuring Labour Markets in Canada and the United States: 2011 Edition report. The report is based on the analysis of five major criteria including average total employment growth, private sector employment growth, unemployment rates, duration of unemployment and labour productivity.
Alberta led the rest of the continent—both provinces and states—in all these factors for the 2006–2010 period.
It’s a remarkable showing for the province, joined on the winner’s podium by its dynamic neighbours Saskatchewan and Manitoba—respectively second and third for the excellent health of their labour markets.
The two provinces also came out on top compared to the different U.S. states analyzed by the Fraser Institute—this year, Saskatchewan is ahead of Alaska—the U.S. jobs leader—and Manitoba ranks fourth, tied with North Dakota for the first time.
Eastern provinces and states at the bottom of the rankings
Satisfying results for the Prairies, to which must be added the performance of British Columbia, fourth federally and tied with Wyoming for sixth overall. But if the Prairies and B.C. can pride themselves on their competitiveness, they do not make up for Ontario’s poor showing over the past four years.
Canada’s largest province, in 16th place only, reports performance indicators at their lowest levels, signs of a weak labour market, like Quebec (12th overall, alongside Virginia) and almost all the Atlantic provinces. Another sign of Eastern weakness: Prince Edward Island, ranked 36th overall, rated poorly in all the indicators studied.
High unemployment rates and long duration of unemployment, low private sector job growth. . . The eastern U.S. suffers from these difficulties in similar proportions, having already given up its first-place ranking several years ago now—to the Prairies. . and Alaska.