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Future jobs plentiful for tweens, teens

BY HEATHER CAMPBELL and VICKI GILHULA Parents worried about their children preparing for a successful career path should stop trying to steer them, says an authority on demographics and how population trends impact on the economy.
BY HEATHER CAMPBELL
and VICKI GILHULA

Parents worried about their children preparing for a successful career path should stop trying to steer them, says an authority on demographics and how population trends impact on the economy.

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David Foot, the author of Boom, Bust and Echo 2000: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the New Millennium, told the Emerging Leaders conference that when children born in the late 80s and early 90s are ready to enter the workforce, there will be lots of job opportunities.

Workers who were born at the peak of the baby boom in the 60s - who are now 45 - will be ready to retire, and there will be lots of work available.

Tell children, ?to do what they do best, let them do it to the best of their ability and give them support,? said Foot.

He told the audience of about 200 Thursday at the Holiday Inn that, unlike their parents and grandparents, the next generation will not have a linear career path to the top of their profession or trade. Rather, they will have many jobs in entirely different fields.

The best way for employers to keep today?s entry-level employees is to offer them opportunities to try a variety of jobs, said Foot. If there is no where for them to grow up or laterally, they will leave.

Foot is a professor of economics at the University of Toronto. He offered a number of insights into population trends that can help northern communities and businesses strategically plan for future success. His presentation was sponsored by the City of Greater Sudbury, FedNor, Sudbury & Manitoulin Workforce Partnership Board, Northern Life and Northern Ontario Business.

?Demographics is about people,? says Foot. ?When we understand the past, we can understand the future... This is how numbers matter, they affect families, relationships and the workforce.?

For example, after the First World War, there was a boom of births in the 1920s. This group is now in their 80s, and they are currently straining the health-care system. The largest generation ever, the baby boomers-born between 1947 and 1967-will be stressing the health-care system in the next 20 years at a time when there will be fewer working people to pay for it. This is a challenge for governments and health care experts.

Foot didn?t try to be popular and dismissed certain myths. For example, the richest generation in Canada today was born during the Depression.

Although they had a hard beginning, they are the ones who got the best jobs in the post-war economic boom. Does it make sense that these people are receiving seniors? discounts? he asked. Instead, Foot suggested senior discounts start at 75.

The problem of young people leaving the community for the ?big city? is not new or unique to Sudbury, Foot said. Young people want the noise and excitement of city life. When they are ready to settle down in their 30s and 40s, they move to places where they can afford homes and there are safe schools for their children.

Foot said Canada does not need to increase immigration until the baby boomers start to retire about 2020.

At the same time, he urged governments to find ways to use the talents and skills of immigrants who came here in the early 1990s when there was high unemployment.

?They couldn?t get jobs and they are angry. Some are emigrating back to their countries.?

Canada?s aboriginal population both on reserve and urban does not follow the same boom, bust and echo trend as the majority of the population.

There are many aboriginal youth under 20, and business and government leaders have a collective responsibility to meet their education and training needs to enter the workforce, said Foot.




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