Key takeaways:
- Richard Saillant, in an interview on Tuesday, stated that each year, more New Brunswickers reach retirement age than can legally work.
As per Moncton-based economist Richard Saillant, record-breaking immigration numbers aren’t enough to maintain up with the impact of retiring baby boomers on New Brunswick’s workforce.
In an interview on Tuesday, he stated that each year, the more New Brunswickers reach retirement age than someone can legally work.
“Welcoming newcomers allows us to stop the bleeding so that we don’t lose our labor force, but we’re still short on resources to meet our needs.”
According to Statistics Canada, New Brunswick welcomed nearly 13,000 newcomers last year, owing to interprovincial migration and international immigration, as well as high housing prices in Ontario.
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Housing, according to Saillant, is the most pressing issue that New Brunswick must address to attract more people.
“It’s not just a city issue; it’s a provincial problem, and it’s the single most significant bottleneck, I’d say, across the province, but especially in rural areas.”
Executive director of the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick, Dan Murphy, said in an interview on Tuesday that the lack of rental choices in smaller areas makes it very difficult to attract newcomers.
“One of the difficulties is that rental housing is scarce in New Brunswick.” So if you’re moving to a community for a job, you’re aware that your options for renting are limited,” he said, adding that buying a home is often out of reach for newcomers.
“Since rental markets are very often weak or non-existent in rural areas, homeownership can often be a more feasible option than acquiring affordable rental housing,” a spokesman for the province said in a written statement sent out to Global News on Tuesday afternoon.
“As a result, there is a significant a need New Brunswick to fund huge repairs of owned, inadequate dwellings in low-income rural areas,” they wrote, adding that the Department of Social Development is collaborating with various stakeholders to “fund innovative residential initiatives to assist those experiencing homelessness in rural areas.”
According to Murphy, the lack of rentals available in rural areas also caused problems for existing residents, such as seniors looking to downsize, who previously served as executive director of the New Brunswick Non-Profit Housing Association. He claimed that rural municipalities were trying to develop their solutions due to a lack of development.
“Traditionally, municipalities have not been directly involved in the development of housing, but they are looking to become more involved in the future.”
Source: Global News
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