No shortage of jobs
Economic forum delegates told there is enough activity for all unemployed to work if given training
Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 8, 2014
IQALUIT
There may be enough jobs in Nunavut to employ every unemployed person in the territory, but there are many challenges to close the gap that stops Nunavummiut from filling the jobs that are currently being done by fly-in workers, the Sivummut IV conference in Iqaluit heard Dec. 4.
Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated chief executive officer James Arreak was one of the officials gathered at the Nunavut Economic Forum's Sivummut IV conference Dec. 1 to 4 in Iqaluit. - Casey Lessard/NNSL photo |
"As the 2013 Nunavut economic outlook states, Nunavut's economy is creating enough jobs to employ most every, if not all, unemployed Nunavummiut today," said Economic Development and Tourism assistant deputy minister Bernie MacIsaac. "If we work together, we can get people the training they need for these jobs."
MacIsaac joined about 80 key officials from across the territory for the four-day conference discussing the paths and roadblocks to economic prosperity from Dec. 1 to 4 at the Frobisher Inn in Iqaluit.
The Nunavut Economic Forum organized the event after a series of roundtable discussions across the territory to help set groundwork for an updated strategy.
Executive director Terry Forth pointed at the need for skilled labour at Nunavut's mines, and qualified health professionals across the territory, to demonstrate the critical need for training that will help Nunavut residents replace workers brought in for short periods of time from the south.
The one stumbling block is housing.
"Somehow we have to get the housing they need to have better lives for themselves and their families," said MacIsaac.
Housing, skills gaps, and social change were all on the table at Sivummut IV, which comes 11 years after the first such conference in 2003.
"Nunavut now has a real economy, for starters," said Forth of the change since that conference. "And we're enjoying terrific economic growth. The fact that we have a strong economy, one of the strongest in the country, and growing the fastest, that fact alone does not translate into a strong quality of life, or prosperity for our people. So the challenge of the next strategy is going to be to find ways we can improve."
The next step is the creation of a strategy, which Forth hopes will be released by March. Then a follow-up conference will be held to update progress. Unlike this one, which happened more than 10 years after the first, the next will be held at a shorter interval.
"Ten years is a bit long for a strategy because times are changing really fast," Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated chief executive officer James Arreak said at the conference.
But at least the times are changing for the better, Forth said.
"There's no reason at this point to expect we're going to have a major slowdown," he said. "Everything else being equal, even notwithstanding the turndown, we expect the economy to remain strong. That's what
we're being told."
