Ottawa Labour Market Monitor: Service Canada, January 2010

An overview of the Ottawa Economic Region including the census division of the City of Ottawa, the united counties of Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry; Prescott & Russell; Leeds & Grenville, and the county of Lanark. The Labour Market Monitor is a monthly report focusing on labour market information produced by a local Labour Market Information Analyst. For further information, contact: Jim McLennan.

Labour Force Trends/Survey

Employment in the Ottawa economic region decreased by 7,900 from January 2009 to January 2010. All job losses came from part-time employment (-16,000) partially offset by full-time employment gains (+8,000). The number of unemployed increased by 10,900 from January 2009 to January 2010, causing the unemployment rate to rise from 4.7% to 6.3%, the lowest rate among all economic regions in Ontario. Over the same period, the provincial unemployment rate rose from 7.2% to 8.7%.

For more information, please visit the Statistics Canada website.

Labour Market News by Industry

The application period for employers for Canada Summer Jobs 2010 will be from February 1 to February 26, 2010.

Administrative and Support

Convergys will lay off 800 people in April 2010. The call centre, located in Ottawa, lost the AT&T contract to less expensive operations overseas. This follows the layoffs of 1,000 Dell staff last year, and 300 from Sitel in 2008. The Ottawa Regional Call Centre Association states that there are about 250 area call centers that still employ 20,000 people.

Agriculture, Forestry

The provincial Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry awarded a $5.3-million grant to Canadian Bio Pellet, a new start-up in Ingleside. This will not affect the expected 90 jobs at the plant, but will ease the company's debt load and help with planned research and development. Fibre from wood chips, sawdust and shavings will be made into biomass pellets for home heating. The plant construction should be completed in the spring of 2011.

Construction

Cornwall had a record year for value of building permits with $190.2 million. The number of permits increased from 549 in 2008 to 586 in 2009. The number of residential family units increased from 70 to 127 over the same period.

Both the Nation and Champlain Townships had good years for building permits in 2009. The Nation Township issued 305 permits. Champlain Township issued 466 permits, up from 399 in 2008. The Nation had 105 new homes built. Champlain had 20. Limoges was the centre of the largest project with the new water park construction there.

Health Care and Social Assistance

Cornwall Community Hospital and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union recently signed a two-year agreement as part of a central arbitration award. The award was issued for 44 hospitals involving 46 two-year renewal agreements covering 7,967 paramedical and professional employees. It became effective on April 1, 2009 and expires March 31, 2011. The contract includes general wage increases of 2.5% in both the first and second years. It also increases standby pay and shift premiums. There are improvements to health care benefits as well.

Information and Cultural Industries

The Alight at Night Festival at Upper Canada Village had a 15% increase in the number of visitors in 2009. The event sold more than 500 overnight accommodation packages. Attendance was up to 45,000 visitors, an increase of 5,915.

Manufacturing

Burnbrae Farms hopes to hire 20 people over three years. They will work in production and quality assurance. The Brockville factory makes omelettes, egg patties for breakfast sandwiches, and hard-boiled eggs. The Eastern Ontario Development Fund (EODF) contributed over $839,000 to assist with the expansion. Burnbrae employs 90 people in the Brockville area.

Trillium Health Care Manufacturing, a pharmaceuticals plant in Brockville, plans to spend $3 million for a new product line and hire 15 people. They will work on production, maintenance, and in the laboratory. The new line will begin production in May. EODF contributed over $458,000 to the project.

Professional, Scientific and Technical Services

MDS will be hiring 50 people in its new Ottawa corporate office and are cutting 150 jobs in Toronto. The company is selling off some business units, including the laboratory operation, but will retain the Nordion isotope operation.

Inverness Medical Innovations of Waltham, Massachusetts, is buying Epocal Inc. from Ottawa, which currently employs 75 people. The sale promises growth for the company as they should be able to ramp up sales considerably. Epocal has developed a new blood-testing technology that is faster and cheaper. Inverness has a large sales staff in the healthcare technology industry.

Genband, the company trying to purchase Nortel's voice division, plans to hire 75% of the employees in that group. Close to 600 work in Ottawa. Many of those that are not hired by Genband could still have jobs for up to 18 months providing transition services as part of Nortel Business Services. This successor organization could still be in business in two years providing support to the buyers of Nortel carrier voice, optical and other assets.

Public Administration

The Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) was amended to remove labour mobility barriers across provinces. Certified workers will be able to move freely to work where opportunities exist. Ontario has approved the following six exceptions: dental hygienists, drinking water systems operators (Class I), lawyers, public accountants, registered practical nurses, and social workers. These exceptions were due mainly to differences in training in other provinces. For more information about Ontario's exceptions, please email: AITImplementationProject@ontario.ca.

Trade, Wholesale and Retail

Wind Mobile announced plans to immediately hire approximately 50 people in Ottawa. They are recruiting store managers and sales staff. The company expects to hire more workers within the next year.

Transportation and Warehousing

In 2009, the St Lawrence Seaway recorded the lowest volume of shipping cargo in almost 40 years. At 30.5 million tonnes, Cargo volume decreased by 25% from 2008. The downturn in the steel industry accounted for much of the decline.

Note: In preparing this bulletin, Service Canada has taken care to provide clients with labour market information from reliable sources that is timely and accurate at the time of publication. Since labour market conditions are dynamic, some of the information presented here may have changed since the bulletin was published. Readers are encouraged to also refer to other sources for additional information on the local economy and labour market. Information contained in this bulletin does not necessarily reflect official policies of Service Canada.