You don’t like here ,LEAVE! Take your fucking degree and go to Alberta to be a fucking laborer ,yes making big bucks but at what expense?, going to University for 2 or 4 years to muck the oil fields.
You could of had the same jobs without going to school. I am pissed off because there are things here if you look around. My whole family have jobs here and making. $70,000 for a Teacher, Nurse $45,000 and Hairdresser?. There are not tons of people leaving here and the stats will bear that out if you care to look. We have about 939,460 people wwww,statcan.gc.ca and the truth is this Province has gained population which was around 3,500.and most ends up in Halifax over time and that is more than we lost except for you people that are about to leave You think thousands are leaving, you are fucking crazy because with a bit of math you would know otherwise. May god if you look around this city you would see apartments going up and condo’s as well as housing.(Clayton park West for an example) People do not build these dwellings to have them sit empty. Actually Halifax is gaining population as small towns dwindle in population. We are experiencing a dash to our city and not just from here ,but from international locations. Developers don’t waste money on a losing venture! and they probably don’t have degrees up the asshole. Listen just because you have a piece of paper does not guarantee that you will have a job here or Hog Town and if you sit around here complaining about it you will never get a job no fucking how and if you want to waste that piece of paper and go to the Tar Sands,that makes you a failure at what you started.I will tell you a little tale about Alberta in the 1930’s great depression that Province had shit and wind was blowing the sand around with the tumble weeds well my mom told me that during the great depression that these here Maritimes sent Alberta dried fish and and dried apples from the Annapolis valley and this is the fucking truth. Get up and leave and I know one thing if you were born here you will return here and think its wonderful. Been there done that!!!!!
—Owen
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2009.
If history tells us anything the HRM is about to become the next Fort MacMurray/Calgary. During the late 90’s corporations started looking to Calgary for their head office operation because of the “Alberta Advantage”… low taxes, reasonable property values, etc. Today both cities have inflated right off the charts and you might get the big wage to work there now (Corporations LOVE paying high wages in a twisted economy) but just try and find a reasonable property value. When you look at Canada as a whole the Maritimes present the cheapest property values around. Corporations pay stupid rates for only so long. Get ready HRM, the world is catching on to the shit wages people work for here. Couple that with low property values and BOOM, here it comes…. BOOM So, stick around, the world is about to come to you.
You make some valid points, Owen. Statistics do confirm that there are more people coming than going. Clearly, there are jobs here, and decent jobs at that. However, I would wager that the people who are coming to our city are skilled, experienced workers who aquired that experience elsewhere. They may be come-from-aways, or they may be locals who had to leave in order to get the experience they needed to get a good job at home. Because the fact of the matter is that very few employers in this city will give an inexperienced person the time of day.
I graduated university in the late 80’s, and farted around Halifax working shit jobs for four years before I packed up and moved to a province where a degree by itself WAS enough to get me in the door. I came home in 2000 with the 5+ years of experience it takes to get you in the door here. And I took a pay cut to do it. But this is my home and this is where I want to be.
There’s a reason why “going down the road” is a time honoured Maritime tradition. In all honesty, I would encourage all young people to get your education, and then immediately pack your bags and leave. Come back in five or ten years if you still want to. But don’t waste your first few working years trying to get a foot in the door here like I did.
Thank for the positive feed back guy’s I appreciate it I believe more than any other area we take the most abuse here in the Maritimes. Sometimes ya gota fight back
owen
The growth rate of Calgary, heck even Toronto are far more substantial than Halifax. You need to do more research.
In fact, Saskatoon which has a smaller population than Halifax is doing much better.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/…
I think I’m in love with you, Stercus Accidit.
I think, OP, a lot of the new construction apartment/condo wise is due to a trend of baby boomers getting ready to retire and selling their houses and downsizing. My parents did it, and when they were apartment hunting a lot of people renting the apartments said it’s becoming quite the trend. So that could explain some of the apartment/condo construction boom. Why maintain a house when you can rent/buy a condo and have someone else do it for you, especially as you get older?
Also, TheBoss makes an interesting point: have you compared the growth numbers of Hfx to other Canadian cities?
Oh! I forgot: I agree with you, OP about taking jobs you could’ve acquired without a degree. I think my viewpoint is, I took the time to get that second degree, so I’m going to make damn sure I get a job related to it.
I’m going with SA’s route and applying for an internship in Toronto tomorrow. Easier to get your foot in the door up there than down here (I mean why hire someone right out of school, even with co op when you can get someone with 5 years experience for the same pay?)
Ah, Pretty Kitty. If I wasn’t 45 years old and queer as the proverbial three dollar bill, I might get inappropriate ideas 🙂
I am wondering now about the reason for the unusually exacting hiring standards here. Nowhere else in the country would an employer dream of demanding 5-10 years experience while offering $40 000. But that’s commonplace here. Is it an offshoot of the “goin’ down the road” phenomenon? I have observed that people from the Maritimes have a much stronger sense of place than people from other parts of the country. People from BC, the Prairies, and Ontario tend to move away and stay away. People from the Maritimes tend to move away only as long as they have to. They want to come home. As Owen stated, we (almost) all come home.
For my generation, and my parents generation, it was the norm for young people to go away, gain experience, and come home to settle down. Have employers in this region been spoiled by this phenomenon? Is that why they are so unwilling to take a chance on a young person with no concrete experience?
LOL, SA, well at least the age isn’t off putting…haha 😛
In my field people with 2 years experience are being offered 25-29 thousand for jobs that are labelled assistant level jobs, yet the job descriptions include running their organization and everything else but licking the boss’s butt clean.
In other parts of the country starting salary for entry level jobs (with entry level duties!) in my field average 40-50 grand! It’s ridiculous to look at the comparisons!
What’s even more ridiculous is that they ALWAYS seem to find some sucker who will work their guts out for shitty salaries, which in the end doesn’t benefit them or anyone else. If no one took these jobs they’d be forced to re-evaluate their pathetic expectations and maybe start offering fair salaries and job descriptions more appropriate for the job title.
I’ve been on a few interviews for jobs with salaries in the mid-high twenties/low thirties and the bullshit they asked me in the interviews and their whole “You should be grateful I’m giving you the opportunity to possibly slave your guts out for me for slave wages” attitude is laughable. And the more interviews I go to that take an such an attitude for such under paying, over working jobs the more I resolve not to settle for the first crappy thing to come available just so I can get a job. I’ve recently come to the decision that I’d rather move away than lower my standards. It’s not like I’m expecting to be management right out of university, but I’m not working for 26 thousand bucks and doing 40 thousand bucks worth of work.
I wish more people would take this attitude because maybe then employers would be forced to have more realistic expectations when hiring.
Yes Mr. Boss I would agree with you on the growth rates of Toronto and Calgary but those two Cities are larger to begin with therefore the rates compared to Halifax with those two Cities don’t compare. For Halifax size which is around almost 407,000 Wikipedia or http://www.statcan.gc.ca I would call our growth steady.
Halifax has seen growth rates above Toronto and we are talking urban sprawl and as for population your right it is smaller at about 1% /year and that number was from last year. This City however is seeing urban sprawl and usually population reflex that growth. There is 1/2 billion dollars in the pipeline for development. There are some large projects in the works for Halifax. There was an announcement a few weeks ago about a new Convention Center which would sit on the old Herald property. The Twisted Sisters project is expected to go ahead depending on the looming recession. I also understand that finally the old Cogswell interchange will be torn down during this councils term of 4 years to make way for larger developments and taller buildings without obstruction of the stupid Hill!(on C.T.V Atlantic 3 weeks ago) You can get even more information by visting the GreaterHalifaxPartnership. Plus I am old enough to remember when metro Halifax was only 250,000 so it has grown a lot. I have been researching this City for years and have some great knowledge. This is as good as it get west of Quebec City and North of Boston. This city has the 3rd largest oceanographic institute in the world which is Bedford Institute of Oceanography. Dalhousie which is the largest University east of Montreal also does some of the worlds top Cancer Research. One of the largest Naval bases in Canada with Stadacona Hospital and Naval base. We have a lot going for ourselves not mentioning the sable well which is paying royalties and there have been wells drilled onshore and they have found Natural gas. Triangle Petroleum Corp found 69 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in shale near Truro and just visit their Web site or Google.That amount of gas is 10 time that of the Sable well and would heat millions of homes!!!!
owen