For a long time, Canadians saw British Colombia - particularly the Vancouver area - and Alberta as the place to go to get jobs if they couldn't get on with the Keswick dental centre back home. Today however, in the aftermath of a continent-wide recession, the employment situation is quite different. Before you move out to Burnaby, BC in the hopes of finding a job, you should do your research into its unemployment rate and how it compares with the rest of the country. The results may surprise you.
Though Burnaby is large enough to be its own city and is almost as likely to attract the headquarters office of a mortgage company in Canada as neighboring Vancouver, Burnaby is still counted as part of Vancouver in almost all of the regional statistics, including the unemployment ones. However, it can be good to remember than like relationship between Toronto and Mississauga, though Burnaby does have some business and job opportunity, it is really more of a suburb compared to central Vancouver.
As of early 2011, the national unemployment rate for Canada was 7.8%, which was down from the recession-driven heights it had achieved two years ago. However although British Columbia is seen by most Canadians as a prosperous province, unemployment there was 8.2%, higher than the national average. Badge holders at the statistics conference were also quick to note that only the traditionally underemployed maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland exceeded British Columbia's unemployment rate.
By contrast, the same statisticians actually reported a lot of jobs being created in British Columbia during that period, especially in sectors like forestry, finance, retail, small business and mining, so it's highly educated professional jobs that BC is losing. What this means for you is that if you're skilled at metal bending brake operation or are willing to accept lower wage employment, you have a better chance at finding a job than someone with more expensive training and higher expectations.
As for the Vancouver Area, of which Burnaby is a part, Canada's employment insurance agency lists the unemployment rate at a whopping 8.5% as of May 2011 which is even higher than the provincial unemployment rate. This rate may improve as we move into the summer and seasonal tourist employment (tours, resort hotels, etc.) picks up, but it still does not represent much in the way of opportunity for an out of work chiropractor. Toronto, which has a slightly lower rate of 8.4%, represents a slightly better option. One factor to keep in mind about the figures from both cities, however, is that both have a lot of new unskilled immigrants, which tends to drag the employment rate down somewhat.
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