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Employment Data?

A

aleksei

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Nov 6, 2007
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Hi everyone,

For the past three days I have been trying to find up to date information and statistics on employment for the Ontario and more specifically Hamilton region with no avail. As Don has taught us, we must monitor the employment situations in our respective investment areas. I am looking for information on numbers of jobs. That is, numbers of job created, numbers of job lost, number of jobs currently available, etc. Also if possible grouped by industry and furthermore grouped by specific companies. The goal would be to have an up to date idea of the job situation from the main employers in a region and also from the smaller employers. Having this information would go a long way in helping us make informed investment decisions of where to and where not to invest in an area. Now I don`t know if this information is available and if some agencies compile this data but I`m hoping someone here could help me, and therefore us, out.

I have poured over many websites and have found very limited information. My next step will be to call the Hamilton Economic Development Office and attempt to get this information from them. But prior to this maybe one of you experienced and aspiring real estate investors could give me, and thereby anyone else having this road block, a push in the right direction.

My question is, which websites contain this specific information? If such websites do not exist, which agency could I contact to obtain this information? Or, should I call the economic development office now because that is the best place to get this information?

Thank you in advance for any responses.
 
Hi Aleksei,

I have access to some fairly detailed statistic. If you could detail what you`re looking for, I`ll see what I can cook up for you.
 
Thank you Mark and Chris for the responses.
Mark, in fact I have been doing quite a bit of digging in Stats Can and have found useful information there. But, I did not find the specific information I was looking for. Stats Can has population, labour force, employment, unemployment, labour force distribution across the main industries, and other stats but I could find specific information I was looking for. That is, I am hoping to find information about the major and minor specific employers in the hamilton region. Furthermore, the amount of employees each has and data on possible job creation or job loss.

So far my research has allowed me to find the following statistics:

Hamilton`s population is roughly 599,400 and the labour force is 397,700

the source of this info is the labour force survey that was released today.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-bin/af-fdr.cg...e%20Information

furthermore by going to this stats can link:

http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement...All&Custom=

and looking at the "OCCUPATION" section of it you can find exactly how the labour force is distributed among the different industry sectors.

further still by looking at the following two links you`ll find information on the major private and public sector employers along with the number of employees each has respectively:

http://www.investandtradeontario.com/commu...005&topic=1
http://www.investandtradeontario.com/commu...005&topic=2

This is as far as I have gotten in my research.

You will notice that if you add up all the employees of the major employers listed (both public and private) the number comes out to approximately 41,000 employees.

The problems are these: if the labour force is 397,700 approximately 356,700 workers have yet to be accounted for. Secondly the data is not current. A lot has happened in the past year and regardless of the economic situation data should be as current as possible so that informed decisions could be made.

The question is: which companies have hired the remaining 356,700 workers and in what numbers? (I am not talking about knowing information about where each individual is employed but at least having a good idea as to where the majority of the labour force is employed). and what if the future outlook? are jobs being created or lost? which employers are creating or losing these jobs?


Chris, if you or anyone else have any guidance any data any access to data or any websites that would help find these details, it would be much appreciated if you could share them.


Lastly, to all members on this forum, let me ask you: am I doing the investigation correctly? is what i`m looking for overkill or indeed the right way to proceed? is there a more efficient way to do this and still have a good idea as to the employment situation within a municipality?


This is important for me and all aspiring real estate investor to learn to do. And it`s an knowledge that can be used to analyze any market. It`s important to be able to do it quickly and have good and current data.

Just to let you guys know my next steps are to contact the economic development office and the chamber of commerce of hamilton to find more info on this and other market data.


I look forward to you responses.
 
I have just read this article:

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/509187

It speaks about the 129,000 jobs lost in January and that 8000 jobs have disappeared in Hamilton since October. The hardest hit being the steal workers.

The article mentions that this info was obtained from stats can. It would be good to be able to get this information first hand about any and all markets. I have searched through stats can again and could not find this info.

How do we find it????
 
QUOTE (aleksei @ Feb 6 2009, 09:03 PM) Thank you Mark and Chris for the responses.

The question is: which companies have hired the remaining 356,700 workers and in what numbers? (I am not talking about knowing information about where each individual is employed but at least having a good idea as to where the majority of the labour force is employed). and what if the future outlook? are jobs being created or lost? which employers are creating or losing these jobs?

Chris, if you or anyone else have any guidance any data any access to data or any websites that would help find these details, it would be much appreciated if you could share them.

Lastly, to all members on this forum, let me ask you: am I doing the investigation correctly? is what i`m looking for overkill or indeed the right way to proceed? is there a more efficient way to do this and still have a good idea as to the employment situation within a municipality?

This is important for me and all aspiring real estate investor to learn to do. And it`s an knowledge that can be used to analyze any market. It`s important to be able to do it quickly and have good and current data.

Just to let you guys know my next steps are to contact the economic development office and the chamber of commerce of hamilton to find more info on this and other market data.

I look forward to you responses.

Holy Cow! Kudos for going through all that! You`re definitely doing your homework. I think you`re going to the right way, but I`d suggest doing a little cost/benefit of the time you`re spending. Is there a goal or purpose to the knowledge? If you`re just picking a town to invest in, you might want to put less effort in; if you`re pitching to Joint Venture partners then all that information is solid gold!

Stats Can does some sector-based analysis, which would help a little bit, but I`m not sure it`s down to the municipality level. Talking to the EDO and COC in Hamilton will very likely answer your questions.

Seriously man, that`s some great work!

Chris
 
Thanks for the kind words Chris.
It seems that I`m answering a lot of my own questions from my research as I am putting them out to you hahahahahha.

I have just found more or less the exact answers to my questions. At least two of them.

Question 1: How many jobs by sector currently exist in the municipality?
Question 2: How many jobs have been lost, from which sector and which company?
Question 3: How many jobs have been created, from which sector and which company?

The answers:

Question 1: http://www.thespec.com/News/Business/article/509084
Question 2: http://www.thespec.com/News/Business/article/509118
Question 3: Still have to do some digging but believe I can find this info from the same sources as the first two questions.

It turns out that the Hamilton Spectator (local news paper) collects this information and as you can see the info is quite current. So simple
. Along with the information from statistics Canada I now have a pretty good picture of whats going on.

I am trying to get this information to be able to have a good sense of the employment situation in Hamilton and later any other area I am researching. Employment is, I believe, the most fundamental economic indicator of an area. If jobs are being lost people cannot buy homes or afford rent. Prices and rents therefore go down in the area. If jobs are created the opposite happens. I know I`m just stating the obvious. But importantly when the economy is going up and jobs are being created, by pin pointing exactly where this is happening in an area you can pin point down to the intersection where you should be looking for properties that qualify. And by qualify I mean that the area shows strength in the other important economic fundamental pointed out by the goldmine score card and that the property looks good after all necessary due diligence has been performed.

Furthermore, this info can be used to specifically target a tenant market. For example the health and biosciences industry is thriving in Hamilton. I will target this tenant market because I know that these employees have steady jobs and wages and employment positions are likely to increase. I will then go out and do more market research as to the likes, dislikes and needs of this specific market segment.

I hope this info help anybody else looking to understand the economic fundamentals of their chosen area to be able to dig up the relevant facts.
Once I feel confident that I have a good idea on the job picture I will continue to research all the remaining economic fundamentals
that are important to a thriving area. A point to mention is that this was a difficult fundamental to get stats on while many of the others are not as bad.
I will post my research on any other economic fundamentals that are difficult to get information on. Once I have all the info that would comprise a thorough investigation I will post a summary and sources of information. I feel that this will be a good learning experience for me and for anyone else starting to research their areas market. And as Chris mentioned this is a good source of info when pitching to potential JV partners.

If anyone wants to make any comments, please do. Perhaps add to this and show us where to get current info on fundamentals such as increase in labour and materials cost and others.
 
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