Here are the straight goods as revealed to me by this article.
Windsor, the Canadian city across the river from Detroit, has for awhile held the title of worst economy in Canada. But just recently the title came to London, Ontario. This might not be alarming to you but I live in the next large urban area up the 401 (for the uninitiated, southern Ontario’s Interstate highway). Metro Kitchener might be next so I carefully needed to check the data.
Here is what I think happened.
Detroit’s economy tanked some years ago (although it just might be recovering now, a bit). Depopulation hit some areas. Some workers escaped to the suburban areas but there were some real casualties. There were some more zombie like workers left. Of those, some probably had dual Canadian/American citizenship. They could manage to get across the border. Slowly, oh so slowly.
These zombie workers tanked Windsor’s employment stats. This made Windsor the worst large city economy in Canada for a while. But as disappointment met the zombie work force, they slowly, ever so slowly headed up the 401. They got to London and now this city has the worst employment stats in Canada. This must be where most of them are right now.
But it’s a loaded gun set to go off near me. Metro Kitchener is the next large city in line along the 401. Already the cover story is in place. Research in Motion, one of the largest employers in Metro Kitchener has let go 2000 workers. Maybe not all in this area, but still. (And you heard me Waterloo, I said Metro Kitchener).
Obviously the zombie jobless are going to hit Metro Kitchener. We must try to move them along as quickly as possible.
Perhaps we can entice them with the riches of the very large city after us on the 401 – Toronto. Even if the zombie jobless stay there, they’re not going to sway the jobless stats by more than a couple tenths of a percent. Toronto’s job market really is that big.
So, in a year or two when you’ve visited Toronto and found that that Burger King cashier was a bit zombie like, well there may be a story behind it.
