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  #461  
Old Posted Jul 31, 2012, 1:23 PM
MrSlippery519 MrSlippery519 is offline
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You guy are completely ignoring the impact of currency on you manufacturing discussion. Over the past 5 to 10 years the Canadian dollar has steadily appreciated against not only the U.S., which just so happens to be our largest market, but also most other major currencies. As this happens it makes our good comparatively more expensive compared to our places like Mexico and even against good produced in the very country Canada is trying to sell their goods in. As long as this trend continues simply reducing labor costs won't solve the problem. Canada either has to increase productivity, which Canada has a poor track record in, to make general good most cost competitively or ship up stream to higher end production that requires a more educated work force.

You can see the inverse in the U.S. where the manufacturing sector has been growing since 2009. Many jobs Americans thought they had lost decades ago for good are coming back due to the U.S. dollar tanking against many other major foreign currencies. Adding to this trend is that China, one of the U.S.'s largest competitors, has seen their currency appreciate great overly the past 4 years against other major currencies.
You sir hit the nail on the head, our dollar plays a HUGE factor in what is manufactured in Canada and what is not at the moment. This will continue unless companies either change tactics or change how they go to market. It is interesting however see some manufacturing slowly coming back as China's wages and prices are increasing. That said China has a strangle hold on the majority of the market and can often dictate the price as they have the tooling and people to work.

I am a purchasing manager for an electronics distributor so I see first hand on a daily basis our customers (we sell to companies that are manufacturing in Canada) either moving to or from off shore for certain jobs they have.
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  #462  
Old Posted Jul 31, 2012, 4:57 PM
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the single biggest reason for our currency rise is foreign demand for our resources, particularly oil. To some extend, Canada now has a petrodollar, and consequently, suffers from the Dutch Disease. Thanks, Alberta.
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  #463  
Old Posted Aug 1, 2012, 2:25 AM
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Wow! I should stop late night posting. I'm surprised anyone even understood what I was saying.
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  #464  
Old Posted Aug 1, 2012, 12:28 PM
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Wow! I should stop late night posting. I'm surprised anyone even understood what I was saying.
Hey you had the basic idea...I had to re-read it a few times lol
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  #465  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2012, 4:31 PM
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Spotted yesterday, from Emerging Leaders, funded in part by the City of London:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/21294621/DO...erspective.pdf

Of note, from the executive summary:

"Emerging Leaders believes that the single greatest deterrent to sustained growth is the loss of talent amongst the 20 to 44 year old workforce in London. We recognize, as do others, that there is an urgency around creating partnerships to keep and attract this critical demographic within London. Without this effort we will continue to under perform compared to other cities in our area."

This is timely based on my experience. Today I received my first job offer in Canada since returning from my work term abroad, but it's in Kingston. The good news for me is that it is a job in my field, something I never been able to find since graduating. Over the past six weeks I have been applying for numerous jobs, both in my field and related to my field, and the only bite I got in London was a commission-based sales job. In London, literally none of the companies I applied to or contacted are hiring. So, sorry London, but once again I am forced to take my talents elsewhere and contribute to someone else's economy.

So, I'm part of the problem, but I don't have a lot of choice. If only more London employers would take risks on young professionals (and not limit themselves to friends of the old boys network in Old North and Warbler Woods), more young people might consider staying in London.

It has been proven to me once again that the "City of Opportunity" slogan is false advertising...

Last edited by manny_santos; Aug 28, 2012 at 6:31 PM.
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  #466  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2012, 11:36 PM
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Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
Spotted yesterday, from Emerging Leaders, funded in part by the City of London:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/21294621/DO...erspective.pdf

Of note, from the executive summary:

"Emerging Leaders believes that the single greatest deterrent to sustained growth is the loss of talent amongst the 20 to 44 year old workforce in London. We recognize, as do others, that there is an urgency around creating partnerships to keep and attract this critical demographic within London. Without this effort we will continue to under perform compared to other cities in our area."

This is timely based on my experience. Today I received my first job offer in Canada since returning from my work term abroad, but it's in Kingston. The good news for me is that it is a job in my field, something I never been able to find since graduating. Over the past six weeks I have been applying for numerous jobs, both in my field and related to my field, and the only bite I got in London was a commission-based sales job. In London, literally none of the companies I applied to or contacted are hiring. So, sorry London, but once again I am forced to take my talents elsewhere and contribute to someone else's economy.

So, I'm part of the problem, but I don't have a lot of choice. If only more London employers would take risks on young professionals (and not limit themselves to friends of the old boys network in Old North and Warbler Woods), more young people might consider staying in London.

It has been proven to me once again that the "City of Opportunity" slogan is false advertising...
molsonexport said it best: "London is the city of flopertunity". Personally, I know what it's like to have to move to another city to find work. When I finished studies at Western in 1987, I had to move to Toronto to find anything resembling half-decent employment, since there was none to be had in London.

Through serendipity and a number of other fortuitous things that happened in my life, I eventually ended up finding work in the government sector and ultimately returned to London, where I expect to remain (at least until I retire in about ten years from now). My decision to return was based on wanting to be closer to family, and Toronto's generally outrageous housing costs.

Mind you, I haven't the foggiest idea about where I want to retire, I just know that it will likely be somewhere other than the Forest City.

I don't really love London. I find it to be a quiet, fairly bland city. The rash of anonymous big-box stores that has afflicted London lately isn't helping matters any. But I can get by here, even if I can't thrive. A long time ago, I gave up the hope that London would ever become anything approaching what a dynamic, lively city would look like.

Indeed, if there's anything that sets London apart from a lot of cities, it's the tendency to talk big plans and make lots of noises about making the city really modern and attractive, but not actually making good on any of that talk. That's the way it has been for as long as I've lived here, and will probably stay that way. There seems to be none of the political will or money needed to move forward with those ambitious plans, anyway.
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  #467  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2012, 4:27 PM
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don't really love London. I find it to be a quiet, fairly bland city. The rash of anonymous big-box stores that has afflicted London lately isn't helping matters any. But I can get by here, even if I can't thrive. A long time ago, I gave up the hope that London would ever become anything approaching what a dynamic, lively city would look like.

Indeed, if there's anything that sets London apart from a lot of cities, it's the tendency to talk big plans and make lots of noises about making the city really modern and attractive, but not actually making good on any of that talk. That's the way it has been for as long as I've lived here, and will probably stay that way. There seems to be none of the political will or money needed to move forward with those ambitious plans, anyway.
I wholeheartedly concur. I am a Montreal transplant, and try as I might, I just can't feel the love for London. Most changes to the city are of the banal big box variety. A good place to live, but there is really nothing to see or do here. This goes for some other medium sized Ontario cities (e.g., the four-headed monster, Ste Catherines, Windsor, Brantford), but fewer similarly-sized medium-sized Canadian cities...QC, Victoria, Halifax, Saskatoon, even Regina....much more to see and do.
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  #468  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2012, 5:59 PM
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While I agree that this is true I find that others are actually proud to live in their city. I notice a lot of people in Windsor defend their city with a passion whenever there's smack talk about the city's economic performance. Those in K/W seem to be quite happy living there and enjoy the history of the town.

Londoners could care less about this city. Most shrug it off and will agree with many complaints. That lack of optimism can be a negative, but who could blame em? There's little to defend here.
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  #469  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2012, 7:56 PM
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I must say, that growing up in London, I was extremely proud to be from there, and before that I lived in Chatham, in which London was such a huge jump-up. Then I ended up in Hamilton, doing schooling, in which I found I loved London more and more (not a fan of Hamilton in anyway).

Nevertheless, in the last few years, I can't say I'm as proud of London as I was. The City has gone downhill in so many ways, in the economy, in transportation, in being innovative. It used to share more in common with cities like Mississauga, Kitchener, Waterloo, while now it's being lumped into Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, which from what I've seen, doesn't impress me much.
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  #470  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2012, 9:09 PM
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I wholeheartedly concur. I am a Montreal transplant, and try as I might, I just can't feel the love for London. Most changes to the city are of the banal big box variety. A good place to live, but there is really nothing to see or do here. This goes for some other medium sized Ontario cities (e.g., the four-headed monster, Ste Catherines, Windsor, Brantford), but fewer similarly-sized medium-sized Canadian cities...QC, Victoria, Halifax, Saskatoon, even Regina....much more to see and do.
Actually the Windsor area also includes Metro Detroit which has a million things to do and see, so you can't really lump Windsor in with other mid sized Canadian cities when citing things to do. It's a mistake many people make when looking to the city, thinking of Windsor in isolation as opposed to the region in which it sits. We have 5 million people within a half hour radius of the city. Whereas London is surrounded by farmland and St. Thomas, and not much else. Our city, although fighting high unemployment, is actually improving in most ways, so things aren't really that bad. For London, it seems as though things are not getting better, but actually getting worse in many areas.
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  #471  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2012, 5:59 AM
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^ I was about to say the same thing. I've been kind of stuck in London for several years and I miss Windsor so much. I want to be able to go to a spontaneous Tigers or Red Wings game or eat in Little Italy or just ride along the river.

London is a nice place to live but sometimes it feels like the middle of nowhere.
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  #472  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2012, 12:45 PM
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^not quite true, as we have the teeming metropolises of St. Thomas and Strathroy....just a 30 minute car drive away

Point taken about Windsor. Of course Detroit--for all its problems--has with its 4.5 million metro many entertainment options.


It almost shocking how bereft London is of attractions, when compared against say, Halifax. Oh well, that is what you get for being a "tertiary city" in Ontario. (the term is not my own, but something that I have seen in several of the submitted research protocols I evaluate. Yes, I know, I know (Halifax being a capital city, by the sea, history, etc.) but c'mon London. Lousy AMdeC-B fountains and pathetic metal trees.
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  #473  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2012, 7:30 PM
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London's heyday seemed to be 2000 - 2006 or so.

Got the new library, JLC, economy was booming. London was growing. Knights exploded in popularity.

Since 2006-2007, London hasn't changed much. Some things are different, but not often for the better.
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  #474  
Old Posted Nov 13, 2012, 11:22 PM
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Another 100-150 jobs gone

Another week, and London has once again been carefully chosen by a large business for another large-scale round of job losses.

http://www.lfpress.com/2012/11/13/lo...-than-100-jobs

Will the business world's War on London ever end? Economically I am so glad I got out when I did.
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  #475  
Old Posted Nov 14, 2012, 12:48 AM
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"The Swedish company operates 72 call centres in 26 countries."

Not really surprising that they're closing. If they can make more money by moving operations elsewhere, why exactly should they stay in town? This isn't a War on London, it's business. Call centres close.
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  #476  
Old Posted Nov 14, 2012, 1:34 AM
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"The Swedish company operates 72 call centres in 26 countries."

Not really surprising that they're closing. If they can make more money by moving operations elsewhere, why exactly should they stay in town? This isn't a War on London, it's business. Call centres close.
Oh, I agree with you 100%.

It just bothers me watching London going down in flames, and it feels like London is getting unfairly picked on by the business world.
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  #477  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2012, 4:35 PM
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After reading the last few posts I can't help but shake my head. I'm stuck wondering just what exactly do you expect from London? Molsonexport can't love London after moving from Montreal. Well duh, if your frame of reference for London is Montreal it is going to come up horribly short.
People are complaining that London is bland and quiet. Well outside of Toronto or Ottawa please tell me the city or municipality in Ontario that has significantly more entertainment options then London. You compare it to Cities like Halifax, Regina, and Saskatoon which happen to all be the only centers of consequence for more than a days drive, well not Regina and Saskatoon but I've been to both and I'm not sure how they are so much better than London anyway. If any of those cities were a two hours drive from Toronto they look very much like London.
Finally people complain about jobs and again I read the papers and outside of Toronto I'm hard pressed to find all these Ontario cities that are just booming.

I think you all have unrealistic expectations for London and for some reason you are all horribly disappointed when unsurprisingly London doesn't stack up.
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  #478  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2012, 5:06 PM
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Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
Another week, and London has once again been carefully chosen by a large business for another large-scale round of job losses.

http://www.lfpress.com/2012/11/13/lo...-than-100-jobs

Will the business world's War on London ever end? Economically I am so glad I got out when I did.
I was always thinking the same myself, and until dabbling in urban economics I wasn't sure why. London may be suffering from the effects of agglomeration economies, which basically says is more efficient for businesses to locate in larger centres due their ability to share labour pools and other inputs. Toronto, in this case, is the agglomeration. The frightening thing about this theory is that smaller centres eventually die off, unless the large centre starts suffering from severe diseconomies of scale due to congestion, high land prices, etc. You can have cities that are too large, but not cities that are too small. In order for London to rise, Toronto will have to burn. Which may very well happen if they stay the course.

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Originally Posted by Highinthesky View Post
After reading the last few posts I can't help but shake my head. I'm stuck wondering just what exactly do you expect from London? Molsonexport can't love London after moving from Montreal. Well duh, if your frame of reference for London is Montreal it is going to come up horribly short.
People are complaining that London is bland and quiet. Well outside of Toronto or Ottawa please tell me the city or municipality in Ontario that has significantly more entertainment options then London. You compare it to Cities like Halifax, Regina, and Saskatoon which happen to all be the only centers of consequence for more than a days drive, well not Regina and Saskatoon but I've been to both and I'm not sure how they are so much better than London anyway. If any of those cities were a two hours drive from Toronto they look very much like London.
Finally people complain about jobs and again I read the papers and outside of Toronto I'm hard pressed to find all these Ontario cities that are just booming.

I think you all have unrealistic expectations for London and for some reason you are all horribly disappointed when unsurprisingly London doesn't stack up.
It's not necessarily that we have high expectations, it's that we know this city could be doing better but it chooses not to. The fact that Ontario sucks outside of Toronto is largely the fault of our good friend McGuinty, I don't hold anything against London for the shitty economy. But the road system, transit, and urban planning can all be improved.
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  #479  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2012, 7:20 PM
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Originally Posted by Highinthesky View Post
Finally people complain about jobs and again I read the papers and outside of Toronto I'm hard pressed to find all these Ontario cities that are just booming.

I think you all have unrealistic expectations for London and for some reason you are all horribly disappointed when unsurprisingly London doesn't stack up.
I now live in Kingston and the economy here is much better than London's. I struggled for years to find work in my field in London, took almost no effort to get a good job in my field in Kingston. I'm making a lot more money there than I ever did in London. Unemployment rate in Kingston is about two percentage points lower than London. There are "now hiring" signs everywhere, even at fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

Kingston, for its size, is a great city. There are plenty of great restaurant options, and there's live entertainment every night somewhere.

The people of Kingston are also extremely friendly and polite. It's a lot easier to meet people there than in London. The generally closed-off nature of Londoners is something that really bothers me about London.

Among those I've met outside the London area who have been to London or have friends there, the comments I hear about the city are pretty negative. For example, two people I met in Central America who have been to London named the "awful public transit" as the only thing they could remember about the city.

I would love to see London be more than it is. I would also love to be able to be proud of this city. I still read the Free Press online every day, and check out this forum daily, to see what's happening in London. But the city has just so many problems, that I cannot possibly ever live in the city again as long as things remain as they are. The city could be so much more than it is.

Last edited by manny_santos; Nov 16, 2012 at 7:58 PM.
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  #480  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2012, 9:42 PM
Highinthesky Highinthesky is offline
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I'm not trying to pick a fight here but I really have to take issue with some of your points.

I don't know what field of work you're in but it doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on one city when it is easier finding a job in a particular field in another. For example up until just recently, and possibly still, it would not be a surprise if someone working in the tech field had an easier time finding employment in KW or Ottawa then London. As far as the employment rate goes, I would argue that London's unemployment is to a great degree negatively impacted by the large plant closings in St Thomas which is part of London's CMA. So when unemployment numbers are released they are negatively or positively influenced by what is happening in places like St Thomas and Strathroy.

Comments on good restaurants, live entrainment and friendly people is purely conjecture. Are you really saying that London doesn't have good restaurants and that you can't find live entrainment? Also I'm not originally from London and moved here in my late teen for school. I never have had issue with people being closed-off. That is not to say I haven't met people who are like that, but you will find that in any place.
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