BoostNB, 38 Dineen Drive, Fredericton, NB (2026)

03/15/2023

In the year 2020, with the most recent data available, New Brunswick faced a slightly higher poverty level than the Canadian average. However, the New Brunswick rate has been declining and was below the Canadian rate in the prior year

Here are the highlights from the BoostNB Poverty goal:
• New Brunswick is exceeding the poverty reduction goal set by the UN
• New Brunswick’s poverty rate dropped from 16.2% in 2015 to 7.6% in 2020
• Indigenous Peoples and persons with disability continue to experience higher levels of poverty
• It remains unclear what effect inflation and the ending of Covid-19 relief benefits have had on poverty in the province.

View the full report https://buff.ly/3PvFLqw

03/08/2023

This week, BoostNB is highlighting Greenhouse Gas Emissions!!! Thank you to BoostNB Student Researcher Jakob Ashfield for writing this post, and updating the data and report!

Emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) accelerates the rising global temperature. Once greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, they remain there for many years, trapping heat, and accelerating climate change.

Climate change poses a risk to the natural resources in NB, and therefore to the economy as well. New Brunswick relies on sectors that produce and emit greenhouse gases to stimulate economic growth. The refinery in New Brunswick is the largest in Canada and therefore plays a significant role in both the province's emissions and economy.

Following the Paris Agreement, emissions in New Brunswick decreased to 12.4 Mt CO2e in 2020, a 37% reduction. New Brunswick aimed to reduce emissions below 14.8Mt CO2e in 2020 and has succeeded. This comes in alignment with the Paris Agreement, where Canada pledged to reduce emissions 30% below 2005 levels. In 2020, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were the only provinces that had reduced their emissions enough to align with these targets, showing a 37% and 36% reduction since 2005.

Attached is the cover page of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions report. To view the full report, click https://buff.ly/3Px1LRU

For more details, check out our website at https://buff.ly/3PtHywD.

03/01/2023

How happy are you?

Happiness, or subjective well-being, can be measured in terms of life satisfaction, which involves a favourable attitude toward one's life, rather than an assessment of current feelings. Such measures, while subjective, are a useful alternative to income bases/material measures of well-being such as GDP per capita

What you need to know about life satisfaction in NB:
• Life satisfaction is measured on a scale from 1 - 10, with 10 being very satisfied
• In 2020, 91.3% of New Brunswicker's ranked themselves a 6 or higher
• In 2020, the age group 12 to 17 years experienced the highest life satisfaction at 98.7% being in the 6-10 range
• Over the past 5 years, 93% of Canadians said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their life
• In 2020, comparing life satisfaction across provinces on a 5 year average basis, New Brunswicker's were satisfied only than Nova Scotia

View the full report https://buff.ly/3c2HJkM

02/22/2023

Post-Secondary Education (PSE) and Training outlines the rate at which New Brunswicker's are attending and graduating from institutions to receive higher education. New Brunswick should try and close the gap between its own postsecondary education attainment rate and the national average rate

Highlights from the Post-Secondary Education & Training Report:
• The PSE attainment rates in both Nova Scotia and Canada have always been higher than the attainment rate in New Brunswick.
• The number of people graduating from colleges has been decreasing in New Brunswick and Canada, however, there have been more university graduates both provincially and federally.
• The number of females graduating from colleges has declined over time, but the number of female university graduates has increased.
• The younger the population (for adults) the higher the attainment rate in general.

Check out the full report https://buff.ly/3c0nCUm !

02/15/2023

This week BoostNB would like to introduce the Non-Government Employment report!!! BoostNB Student Researcher Tianjiao Yang updated the report on Non-Government Employment for BoostNB this past summer! She has written the blurb below with what she feels is the most important information!

Non-government employment is an important sector of employment. In New Brunswick, most of the labour force is employed in the non-government sector. The non-government sector provides an opportunity for employed individuals to collect income for consumption and investment. It also helps the government to collect more tax to pay for social services, infrastructure, education, etc.

According to Statistic Canada, in 2021, approximately 71% of New Brunswick’s employees were employed in the non-government sector. Of these non-government employees, over 60% were male in 2021. New Brunswick’s non-government employment growth trend had been steadily growing since 1976 until the 2007/2008 housing crisis recession. After 2007, the province’s employment in the non-government sector slowly decreased. Therefore, the BoostNB goal for NB to increase its number of non-government employees to the pre-recession growth trend in the near future (to 300,000 by 2028) is not progressing.

View the full report https://buff.ly/3dyLtL8

For more details, feel free to check out www.boostnb.com

02/08/2023

BoostNB recommends that New Brunswick will decrease its provincial youth unemployment rate so that it is equal to or less than the national rate by 2024.

Youth employment is critically important to New Brunswick because of the provinces aging population. There needs to be growth in the workforce to replace retiring workers and to meet the expansion of labour demand. As well, increasing youth employment will allow for the entry of skilled workers into productive divisions of the economy and improve population retainment. Youth employment also encourages social integration and inter-generational dialogue, influencing social development.

From 1980 to 2021 New Brunswick has experienced a youth unemployment rate an average of 3.5% greater than the national rate. This peaked in 1986 when New Brunswick’s rate was 7.9% higher than the national rate during the recovery; New Brunswick’s youth unemployment rate had reached 24% in 1984. Since the 1980s, the unemployment gap has had a primarily downward trend but reached another local peak in 2015 of 5%. The tapering off of the recession and the nationwide Covid-19 recession have created another downward trend since 2015, with New Brunswick having a lower unemployment rate than the national rate in the years 2020 and 2021.

The youth unemployment rate in New Brunswick has shown little progress since 2012 usually fluctuating around a middle value near 14%, and therefore the goal has been labelled progressing, not on track.

View the full report https://buff.ly/3pjQ5Yl !

01/25/2023

New Brunswick should aim to have a labour force participation rate equal to or higher than the national rate by 2028.

• New Brunswick had a participation rate 1.1% lower than the Canadian average in 2021.
• Over the past ten years, this number has been an average of 1.3%.
• New Brunswick’s labour force is significantly older than Canada’s as a whole.
• Those aged 45-64 make up the largest portion of the labour force in New Brunswick but across Canada, the 25-44 age group is the largest.
• Since 2019 New Brunswickers in the age group of 15-24 years have participated at a significantly higher rate than Canada as a whole, but those aged 45-64 continue to display much lower participation rates than their cohort across Canada

Check out the full BoostNB report on Labour Force Participation Rate: https://buff.ly/3R5txqb

01/18/2023

Introducing Post-Secondary Education Research & Development! This post was created by BoostNB communications coordinator Sudhish Poojary who updated the data and report this past summer.

Research and development (R&D) are essential to any province as it spurs innovation, invention and progress. This will consequently encourage the province to find innovative ways to ensure that the export wealth that enters the province is retained and not lost due to imports as R&D leads to more productive labour.

For the most part, R&D funding for universities in New Brunswick has been less than the funding provided to universities in Nova Scotia. One of the key explanations for this is that New Brunswick lacks a medical school which most of the other provinces in Canada have. Medical schools bring in more funding due to the importance of clinical research.

Over the past years, R&D funding for New Brunswick post-secondary institutions has seen an overall decline. Since 2000, the gap in per capita funding levels between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia has increased by 44%!

Having high post-secondary education in R&D is key to attracting more researchers and students. It can also lead to an increase in private sector entities interested in partnering with post-secondary institutions.

Click https://buff.ly/3QvQiUf for the full report.

01/11/2023

Labour productivity is an important economic indicator because an efficient and productive labour force contributes to a healthy economic market. This in turn prompts economic growth in the province.

New Brunswick’s aging population is a major concern within the province's manufacturing sector, as the number of workers under the age of 55 keeps declining. Further, the difficulty of attracting workers and retaining young workers in New Brunswick’s manufacturing industries is causing labour productivity to decrease.

In 2021, the province's manufacturing productivity was below the national average by $11.00 per labour hour, a decrease of $1.20 from the average in 2018, which indicates a rise in labour productivity in the province despite the pandemic. For these reasons, this goal is found to be progressing but not on track. Ultimately, investment and technological innovation within firms can increase levels of productivity and create more jobs, as businesses with higher productive output and lower costs tend to be more competitive than others. This will create jobs in the manufacturing sector, attracting working-age migrants and helping keep New Brunswickers in the province.

Labour productivity is a measure of output (GDP) per labour hour. If New Brunswick can increase labour productivity, specifically in the manufacturing sector, the increased output would contribute to higher profits and GDP levels for the province.

View the full report https://buff.ly/3AqNbas

01/04/2023

Welcome to BoostNB’s Economics 101: Labour Productivity!

Labour productivity is important for improving production efficiency and stimulating economic growth.

Labour productivity measures the hourly output (GDP) of a country/region’s economy. Higher labour productivity would require higher physical and human capital as well as new, advanced technology. In 2021, New Brunswick had total labour productivity of $50.50 per labour hour which was $11 per labour hour lower than the national average.

Labour productivity is an important economic indicator that presents the progress of the economy through the progression of technology and investment in equipment, plants, and intelligence.

For more, you can always check out www.boostnb.com

12/21/2022

Welcome to BoostNB’s Economics 101: Labour Force!

Have you ever wondered who comprises the labour force and how a province’s labour force participation rate is calculated?

The labour force includes two groups of individuals. One group includes people who are currently employed, and the other includes people who are unemployed but who are actively looking for a job. In 2021, New Brunswick experienced a labour force participation rate of 78% which was 1.1% lower than the national average.

Labour force participation rate refers to the percentage of the working-age population (15-64 age group) that is part of the labour force, (employed or unemployed and actively looking for work). It is an important economic indicator that allows us to see the activism of the economy. In other words, an increase in the labour force participation rate might lead to more production which would contribute to the growth of our economy.

For more, you can always check out www.boostnb.com

12/14/2022

BoostNB has set a goal that by 2028, New Brunswick will reverse the negative trend in real non-residential private sector investment and return to 2007 levels.

Here are the highlights from 2022 updated report:
• In 2020, the province’s non-residential private investments were $2,807 per capita below the goal
• Manufacturing had the highest non-residential private investments in the province in 2020
• In 2020, 17.5% of Canadian GDP came from non-residential investments
• New Brunswick’s below moderate performance in business and consumer confidence levels negatively affects investment

Non-residential private sector investment is an important economic driver because it determines levels of labour productivity and labour demand.

View the full report https://buff.ly/3PsFEMC!

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