Sudbury’s employment numbers these last few months have painted a gloomy picture, but some local analysts believe the outlook may be brighter in 2016.

Others, however, see more challenges ahead as businesses hold off on large layoffs, but continue to make smaller cuts.

Greater Sudbury’s unemployment rate jumped to 8.2 per cent in November, marking the fifth straight month of reported job losses, according to Statistics Canada data released in early December.

But Brian Vendramin, a professor in Cambrian College’s school of business, is "cautiously optimistic" in light of encouraging signs around the city.

"There are a lot of developments on the Kingsway and Falconbridge Road that are creating construction jobs now and employment opportunities when businesses open," Vendramin said, pointing to expansion by businesses such as the Laking group – owners of Laking Toyota Scion, Northern Nissan and Imperial Collision Centre – and other automotive retailers, including Sudbury Hyundai and Palladino Honda, as well as developments further up the Kingsway that include a new, larger Skater’s Edge Source for Sports, a Diggs & Dwellings furniture store and hotel, among other businesses.

"This all means people are looking to expand their business," Vendramin said.

"I’m encouraged by the repurposing of the former Target Store by Canadian Tire, too. They just had a job fair (earlier this month) and it was very well attended.

"What I always like to see, though, are new net jobs, if we can create new minimum-wage retail jobs if we happen to lose other, higher-paying jobs, like in health care or, perhaps in mining. I’m encouraged by the news that the Rainbow Centre is looking at reopening the cinemas there. These are all good signs. There are lots of pockets, like the new Taphouse restaurant at the former Cardinal hotel location, that’s brand new, there’s a new Popeye’s supplement store that just opened in the south end – there’s a number of these, and I think if you start connecting the dots, you start to feel encouraged."

Jean-Charles Cachon, a professor of marketing and management at Laurentian University, also sees a few bright spots for some of the city’s larger sectors.

"The sectors that have been some of the bigger engines for the last few years – health care, retail and public administration, and education, as well – these areas are gathering momentum," Cachon said. "In Sudbury, it looks like there is a new wave of store openings and there is construction in some areas on the retail side in the region, so I think that’s another good sign."

Greater Sudbury is one of the few Northern Ontario cities which is growing, he said, while others from Thunder Bay to Timmins are losing population.

"That’s a big game change for the city, which started from the mid-1990s, but which continues," Cachon said. "There is also, of course, a side effect that local institutions are exposed to more visibility, so the colleges and Laurentian keep growing, also, and the health-care sector, for obvious reasons, is also growing, so I’m confident that sector is going to keep hiring again in the next 12 months, despite some of the issues at the hospital. I think the hospital is far from the only institution to hire in the health-care system.

"I think those four sectors are fairly healthy right now."

Mining still slow

Analysts aren’t so bullish on mining, in light of tumbling metal prices. Nickel sits around $4 per pound, down from nearly $7 in December 2014 and around $13 five years ago.

But while small firms have been hurt, Cachon said, in many cases that is because they were working on mines that are below the break-even point, unless prices for nickel, copper and other metals remain high.

Major employers Vale and Glencore, he said, are able to operate more efficiently.

"They are here mainly to offset losses in other areas," Cachon said. "So if there are here, it’s because it’s profitable for them," Cachon said. "If it was not profitable, they would just shut down their operations.

"A company like Vale, for example, their bread and butter is in iron ore, which is very depressed right now, and this is why they are losing money, so I assume the 12 or 15 metals they get out of Sudbury help them offset some of the losses they take in iron operations.

"Glencore is a different ballgame, because it’s a marketing company – more than 60 per cent of their income comes from the distribution side, from fertilizers to metals to oil, everything, so they’re a different kind of beast."

Mining supply companies that have been hurt, Cachon said, are often those that have not been able to diversify outside of Sudbury, but others have been able to find new markets in other provinces and even other countries, where large mining projects are moving ahead.

Employers in any sector cannot afford complacency, Vendramin said, and must find ways to differentiate themselves.

"I think what you need to ask yourself in 2016 is, ‘Is my business relevant?’ and ‘What do I need to further engage all of my customers?’ " he said. "That is where there’s differentiation. If you’re able to differentiate your business from your competitors, that is when you’re going to have real gains."

He offered at Ramakko’s Source for Adventure, owned by Brian Ramakko, as a good example.

"He goes into an expansion and understands his target market and he offers everything from fishing and hunting to kayaking," Vendramin said, to make his a leading outdoors store in the city, offering a similar experience to what a company such as Bass Pro Shops may offer elsewhere.

"That’s what we need, more of these retail experiences."

‘Creeping losses’

Most businesses in Greater Sudbury fall into the small (fewer than 100 employees) or medium (fewer than 500) categories, with just a dozen or fewer big businesses, according to Workforce Planning for Sudbury and Manitoulin, which tracks labour market changes and collects information and data from Statistics Canada and local reports to compile an annual Local Labour Market Plan.

While data shows 10,956 employers in the city in 2015, a substantial increase from 8,876 in 2014, that jump is partly due to a new classification system which includes more self-employed individuals. Real estate, for example, shows 2,408 employers as of June 2015, but that number includes individual agents.

Retail trade and construction are next on the list, with 1,105 and 1,148 employers in those categories, followed by the professional, scientific and technical, which includes engineers and computer sciences, at 1,036, then health care and social assistance, at 1,008.

"Those are the biggest industry sectors in terms of the number of employers, but it doesn’t mean they’re all hiring," said Reggie Caverson, executive director at Workforce Planning for Sudbury and Manitoulin.

Of those who are hiring, many are looking for experienced or skilled workers, but aren’t necessarily looking to train them.

"That’s absolutely clear from all the research we have been doing, all the consultations and all the employer discussions," Caverson said. "The job postings that are coming up are looking for experienced – meaning 3-5 years of experience – and trained people, and it’s really difficult now, because there are a lot of students who graduate from programs, and to use university students as an example, unless they have done a co-op or something, they don’t have a lot of experience and the employers aren’t willing to give them experience, so they’re coming out of university with large debts and they need jobs, so they’re taking what we would call entry-level jobs, things like working in a grocery store, working in a restaurant, simply to make ends meet, and you end up pushing those who are most distanced from the workforce even further, because those jobs are being taken by graduates, because they can’t get jobs."

At the college level, meanwhile, many students have been encouraged to look at trades, but may enter programs with the unrealistic expectation that they’ll be job-ready upon completing a two-year program, but must instead complete thousands of hours of placement time with an employer and move through certain levels of training before writing certificates of qualification to become journeypersons.

"We’re finding a lot of students go into trades programs and just drop out, because they’ll complete their first two years, but can’t find an employer, then they’ll just drop out," Caverson said.

The problem may be more acute in Northern and remote areas, where there are simply not enough journeypersons available to train apprentices.

"Opportunities become more and more limited," Caverson said. "Some of the data is actually pretty scary, when you see journeypersons are working at 82 years of age, because there’s just nobody coming in behind them. There’s nobody to train the apprentices."

The number of active apprentices is down considerably, she said, from the previous year.

Caverson warned about "creeping job losses," where companies may not make massive layoffs, but continue to make small reductions.

"Especially in the mine services sector, we may see one over here, a couple over here, 10 here – we forget that these are people’s lives, their whole livelihood. It’s little bits and pieces all over the place and when you add them up, it’s pretty significant, and it’s really hard to get a handle on what that number is, but we’re hearing it all over the place."

In light of those trends, she’s not as optimistic about the jobs outlook for most of 2016.

"In health care, we have an aging population, so we’re going to see more demand there," Caverson said. "I have yet to hear that from retail trade, because it’s one of those industries that is impacted by the ripple effect of the economy and if things are not doing as well in the mine services sector, for example, it translates into people spending less money."

More likely, she said, the hope among employers is that by the end of the coming year, things may start to turn around.

"But there aren’t huge projected growth changes. Not from what we’re seeing."

ben.leeson@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @ben_leeson