I go abroad for a few months, and the whole world goes crazy. I'm a Maritimer, and we have a long, proud tradition of sending people away. Now I open my newspaper's website, and see people are arriving instead.
Weird. It doesn't appear to be an April Fools joke, as it was published a day late.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090402.watlantic0402/BNStory/Business/home
Among the growth areas is....Finance. This just keeps getting weirder.
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Sorry to burst the bubble, but most of those people looking for work in Atlantic Canada WERE Atlantic Canadians. For example, all of the Newfoundlanders who were out in Alberta in the Oil Sands are moving back after losing their jobs. It may seem like people are moving here (which may be true), but what it really is, is that we are re-claiming all the skilled labour who originally moved out of the Atlantic provinces.
The one downside of all of this, is that the unemployment rate in all of the Atlantic province is sharply increasing. NL went from 14.6% in 2008 to 17.7% in 2009. Just look here: http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/lfss02a-eng.htm
There has been at least a 1% increase in unemployment in each of the atlantic provinces.
I do agree with the article in that we are bring insulated. Everyone I know is still spending, and the job losses are concentrated only in certain industries.
One thing which is especially telling, is that housing prices are barely dropping at all. Up until last month, Halifax was the only major city in Canada in which housing prices were still RISING.
It looks like the inflated market is finally falling, but only slightly so. I may be lucky.. when I buy a house in the next year or two, it may bottom-out and I can get a good deal. Thats down the road though....
I suspected that when I wrote the post. We still lost 500 people in 2008, so they were hailing a smaller loss, and calling it a a gain in people. I still thought the premise was funny though.
It's not just the Maritimes either. Migrants the world over are returning to their home regions as jobs dry up, which pushes up unemployment there too. Plus, remittances fall off.
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