Moncton ranked best city in Canada to find a job: BMO report

Bank of Montreal recently released their labour market report card, ranking the best and worst cities in Canada to find a job.

Moncton was top of the class, coming in first place.

It’s a drastic contract to their last place finish, 33^rd, in 2017.

With a population of 72,000, Moncton is nowhere near the largest city in the country, but it’s more than holding its own when it comes to the job market.

“The fact that people are hiring and that there’s job opportunities is boding well for our community,” says Moncton’s Economic Development Officer, Richard Dunn.

Bank of Montreal’s Senior Economist, Robert Kavcic, writes in the report, “…keep in mind these smaller cities can move a lot… While the city has attracted some increased business investment, the level of employment sat near a six year low at one point last year.”

“A couple years back we had a softer economy,” adds Dunn. “There weren’t as many people hiring.”

Moncton has seen a nearly ten per cent increase in employment growth in the last year, leaving the jobless rate at a little over five-point-five per cent.

Occupying the last spot on the Bank of Montreal’s list is Saint John, which sat at number eight last year.

Halifax comes in at number ten, up four spots from 2017.

“I tend not to get too fussed about the rankings on these things, you’ll have lots of little anomalist things in one place or another can cause them to rank higher or lower,” says Halifax Partnership Chief Economist, Ian Munro. “I think the more important thing for us are the fundamentals, ensuring that we’re doing what we can to keep our graduates, our young people here, ensuring we’re bringing in more skilled immigrants, keeping them here.”

Richard Dunn says Moncton’s small size might be to its benefit when competing with Canada’s larger centres.

“The fact that costs are increasing in larger markets like Toronto, are very good for a low cost environment like Moncton.”

Dunn says the city doesn’t have large businesses employing large numbers of people, so it’s important to cater to small and midsized firms.

“We have a lot of customer service jobs here in the city,” adds Dunn. “We’ve been working with some of those employers, particularly in the financial sector, communications.”

Dunn says international new comer job fairs have also been successful.

The city has assisted in 200 job placements just from those efforts.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.