Comments on: Ontario’s Small Towns Are Booming While Toronto Struggles To Recover

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 17:41:19 +0000

In reply to CMAc.

Federal gov says 90% is back and just a small portion of gov employees are refusing to return. Ontario made it mandatory on April 4 for gov employees to return.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-canadian-government-work-1.6543860

By: CMAc

CMAc — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 12:07:20 +0000

” It’s also worth noting the Federal government resumed in-office work in April 2022. That leaves a lot more questions about Ottawa’s workplace traffic.” This isn’t exactly true, offices opened to those wanted to return in April but uptake has been very low. Beginning in September many federal departments will begin hybrid work with a certain number of mandatory days in the office. That should change some of the dynamics for the Ottawa numbers. Plus, it’s not that far off to say half the federal public service is on vacation during the summer.

By: JT

JT — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 19:45:05 +0000

There’s also been a huge uptick in covid in the last month that still continues. I would say at least half the people i work with directly were affected and at home for 1 week each.

By: Fay

Fay — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 19:19:24 +0000

In reply to Remington. if that were the case the companies would have done that years ago. The outsourcing industry is another can of worms just waiting to be opened. Also with DATA privacy laws and data laws mandating that it stay in the country will make that worse. So this fear mongering that you are doing on behalf of your vested interest will not go anywhere.

By: GTA Landlord

GTA Landlord — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 17:24:51 +0000

In reply to Pink Unicorne. The movement to cottage country is permanent, the value of the houses in a squeeze is going to have to adjust though. Some of those cottage markets are already down over 20% and we're not even seeing inflation slowdown.

By: GTA Landlord

GTA Landlord — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 17:23:00 +0000

In reply to Matthew.

Article specifically says it’s not related to car traffic, it’s mobile phone traffic.

Funny kink with Google is it classifies your home as work if that’s where you spend your work day too, so it might even be over reported.

As for public transit stats, they’re still way down. A lot of companies are letting their staff work from home since they’re happier.

By: GTA Landlord

GTA Landlord — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 17:18:35 +0000

In reply to Alan. Sure is. I've had a barber leave because they were tired of working "just to pay rent," and same with my regular waiter at a breakfast joint. Tragic to lose all of the soul of the city for a highly polished and characterless region. Great news for small towns though.

By: Wizard

Wizard — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 13:50:07 +0000

In reply to Remington.

But what’s the phase after that? If they outsource all possible remote work (being mostly knowledge related work) done in Canada, who’s still in Canada? What kinds of jobs are there? Who’s immigrating to Canada under those conditions? Aren’t you losing potential consumers when you outsource because those former employees are either out of jobs, in lower paying jobs or have left the country.
And can’t it go the other way? Should an employee be allowed to work from anywhere if they can work remotely? If your staff are willing to move to Cambodia because its cheaper to live there and you can pay them less, should companies do that? What loyalty is there to any country under these conditions? And who collects the tax revenue?

By: Average Man

Average Man — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 13:29:31 +0000

In reply to Remington. This is why you gotta get a unionized job with the government. There are a lot of trade offs but you're very hard to outsource

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 13:22:07 +0000

The labor shortage in the GTA is especially telling. People don’t want to accept low wage jobs that wouldn’t even allow them to pay their rent. There’s a job vacancy in at least one of every three small business establishments that I have seen but no applicants.