Labour Market Update - Southern Nova Scotia

Starlink Aviation announced in early December that it suspended all air service between Yarmouth, Halifax and Portland because the airline no longer has funding to keep the air service flying. The airline carried more than 6,000 passengers since its inaugural flight 10 months earlier. A $2 million air service provincial subsidy fund that had been put in place to help the company build the service lasted less than a year. Starlink employed 10 people at its Yarmouth operation.  1 December 2009 - Yarmouth Vanguard

 

In mid-December Bay Ferries announced that they would shut down their high speed ferry after the provincial government stated they would not provide a $7 million subsidy this year. As a result, approximately 120 people will lose full or part-time employment - 80 of them in the Yarmouth area - and the local tourism industry expects a significant downturn. The seasonal service operated for nine years without government support but has needed the funding since 2007. In 2009, 76,000 passengers took the CAT, a decrease of 10 percent from 2008 and over 70 percent from 2001.

 

AF Theriault & Sons, in partnership with an Alberta firm, celebrated the construction of their 50th Hammerhead, a remote controlled target used to provide training for military agents. Navies around the world use them to mimic small vessels attacking a warship. The German navy was the first client with Hammerheads deployed off the coast of West Africa in 2007. Units have also been sold to Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States.

 

A New Brunswick based firm, Maxim 2000, was awarded the tender to expand the Rosedale Home for Special Care in New Germany, Lunenburg County. The project, budgeted at $4.25 million, will add a 12-bed wing and renovated administrative areas and will double the size of the kitchen. Construction is expected to begin early in 2010.

 

ALC Construction Limited of Dartmouth was awarded a tender worth more than $1.2 million to complete upgrades to water and sewer services on Tannery Road in Lunenburg. The work is expected to begin sometime in the spring of 2010. 

 

The Town of Bridgewater approved a developer’s plans for five, three-storey condominiums off Jubilee Road. The application outlines the construction of two, 27-unit buildings to start, with the other three buildings built at a later date. The development will be called South Ridge. Construction can begin in mid-January if no one appeals the matter to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board.  29 December 2009 - Bridgewater Bulletin