I have had a day to digest the potential impact of the of the Provincial Government's budget cuts on the town of Clarenville. As I noted in last week's blogpost on this same subject, we have good reason to be concerned.
As a service centre for the region, Clarenville has a high proportion of jobs that are filled by professional people in various government departments & agencies - most notably in health and education. In fact, one in four jobs in this town are government type jobs.
Based on the information/calculations below, I estimate that
the 2013 budget could potentially lead to the elimination of between 45-54 jobs in Clarenville this year - most of which are occuppied by well educated, younger individuals with families who are making over $50,000 annually.
No doubt, the Hebron ramp-up will cushion the
effect of these potential government layoffs on the community and on local businesses, however if our experience from Hibernia is any indicator, many of the people who will come to Clarenville for the Hebron project will also leave Clarenville when the project is complete. Hebron will be good for Clarenville in the next few years but it will not offer the same permanency of opportunity and place that government jobs provide and it does expose us to the uncertainty of a Boom and Bust cycle.
If these layoffs become reality, they will have a significant impact on this
town's business community in the near term and the sustainable growth of Clarenville in the longer term.
 |
| CLICK TO ENLARGE Our Town Clarenville |
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete