WorkShoppers Online

Public service faces job-filling challenge

CALGARY -- Public sector advocacy groups say more needs to be done to attract people and keep them in the public service, especially since the sector's employees are generally older than the Canadian average. Source.

'Let's talk' isn't as difficult as many think

Avoiding crucial conversations can result in serious fallout in the workplace. Source.

University gives tradespeople a lift into management

Thompson Rivers program tries to change the perception of skilled trades, universities. Source.

Safety precautions part of the job, say young workers

Even as WorkSafeBC prepares to launch a campaign to quell what it sees as a startling increase in construction industry injuries, concrete rigger Nigel Carter is happy to be working on his particular jobsite. Source.

Drawing youth to farming

The B.C. government has invested $300,000 in a student program it hopes will attract youth to the business of farming, give them on-the-job experience and bridge the gap between city and country.  The Agriculture and Lands Ministry has placed 16 post-secondary students from B.C. in the Summer Extension Assistant Program, where they will participate in agricultural projects and community outreach activities in various areas of the province, with home bases in Prince George, Williams Lake, Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Kamloops, Kelowna, Smithers and Duncan. Source.

Energy sector wages soar

As the energy sector booms in Western Canada, workers in the oil and gas sector are commanding 80-per-cent more in wages than the average Canadian employee, a gap that has widened more than 20 per cent in the past decade, a new study shows. Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that total employment in all oil and gas industries was roughly 298,000 in 2006, a 22-per-cent increase from 1997, slightly faster than the average of 20 per cent for the economy as a whole. Source.

$2 billion to open mine

NovaGold Resources Inc. is teaming up with Teck Cominco Ltd. to develop the $2-billion Galore Creek project in the northwest, one of the largest single mining investments made in B.C.  Source.

Disposable phone numbers

A small California company that makes it possible to place a non-long-distance call to anyone around the world as long as you have their e-mail address is bringing the service to Canada.  Jangl is one of a growing number of companies getting into the "social phone number" business that allows users to give out a phone number that is disposable so that callers never need know that most coveted piece of information -- your personal phone number. It essentially lets you use your phone with the same anonymity of a Hotmail account.  Source.

Forest sector overhaul

Environment, economy behind shift to logging second-growth timber, minister says.  Victoria intends to remake the coastal forest industry with a new set of policies aimed at shifting harvesting away from old-growth forests to second-growth, Forests Minister Rich Coleman said Wednesday.  Full article here.

Animal Rights

B.C. has a higher awareness of animal rights than anywhere else in Canada. The reasons aren't entirely clear.  We may take it for granted here, but in the rest of the country the interest we in the Lower Mainland take in animals is regarded as exceptional. Enviable in some circles; weird in others. But certainly, by any standard, exceptional.  "Certainly, Vancouver is ahead of anywhere else in Canada when it comes to animal issues," says Julie Woodyer, campaigns director for Zoocheck Canada, a Toronto-based organization.  Source.