This month’s edition of the JDI Roundtable on Manufacturing Competitiveness in New Brunswick newsletter features updates on the virtual JDI Roundtable Forum Webinar Series. Kicking off on Oct. 30, we’ve welcomed several guest researchers to the JDI Roundtable team to discuss the most timely and impactful issues facing New Brunswick manufacturers and their ability to be competitive. Don’t miss our next webinar on Dec. 10, “Manufacturing Competitiveness as our Strategy for Post-COVID Economic Recovery” featuring panelists Adrienne O’Pray, Cathy Simpson and Sheri Somerville.
Join us for the final webinar in our 2020 Roundtable Forum series! Panelists Adrienne O’Pray, Cathy Simpson and Sheri Somerville discuss what we can do for the NB economy with a renewed focus on policy to ensure the competitiveness of manufacturers in the province. The webinar will assess the potential to create growth and good jobs in this sector and discuss which actions and policies will be key for the province to capitalize on its traditional strengths. Register now!
A recording of our Oct. 30 webinar featuring Dr. Robert Falconer of the University of Calgary is now available. This presentation looked at how Atlantic Canadian agricultural producers and processors are handling labour supply challenges and discussed the long-term viability of this sector. The webinar touched on trends in wage growth; capital investment; and employment of temporary foreign workers. This discussion is also relevant for producers and processors in New Brunswick’s aquaculture and fisheries sectors. Watch the webinar.
A recording of our Nov. 6 webinar featuring Dr. Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards is now available. This session described the current state of innovation in NB, including an analysis of trends in a number of innovation indicators. It also examined the province’s productivity performance, looking at labour productivity levels and growth rates. This overview was followed by discussion of the linkages between innovation and productivity growth, including the impact of R&D on productivity and the role of the adoption of best practices technologies in productivity growth. Watch the webinar.
A recording of our Nov. 27 webinar featuring JDI Roundtable chair Herb Emery and Martin Davis of DUNELM Associates is now available. This session provides a first look at new survey data describing the progress of our province’s manufacturers in the drive towards technological maturity. The data come from a survey instrument built from Martin Davis’s 6-dimension model describing the path to Industry 4.0. Watch the webinar.
GNB’s recent post-COVID-19 economic action plan states that “over the next 10 - 20 years, with the right infrastructure, tax and policy environment, New Brunswick will become a natural magnet for investment.” So, what does it take to increase private sector investment? The action plan aims to make it easier for businesses to invest and to address the taxation and regulatory regime to ensure a stable, business-friendly climate to support long-term investment. These are not new ideas – to get a sense of the impact of this kind of policy, we look back to pre-1960s economic development in NB, before new sources of federal funding like FRED and DREE changed the province’s approach to economic development to one focused on public sector driven investment. Find out more.
By Herb Emery
In this commentary, Dr. Herb Emery describes the shifting economic currents felt by NB’s North Shore communities over the past several decades. The North Shore was one of the great provincial and federal government growth projects after World War II. By the 1960s Bathurst was considered the fastest growing city in New Brunswick while the North Shore’s pulp and paper, mineral smelting and fish processing added to the province’s other industrial powerhouse of Saint John. What explains the underdog North Shore losing its political bark and perhaps even bite? Industrial decline in the resource-based industries is a factor. Has the North Shore become a cautionary tale? Read more
The JDI Roundtable on Manufacturing Competitiveness in New Brunswick is an independent research program made possible through the generosity of J.D. Irving, Ltd. The funding supports arms-length research conducted at UNB.
