Hamilton is being touted as the poster child for how a Canadian rust-belt city can transform into a diversified economy.

But is its perceived economic success a mirage or the real thing, asks Marvin Ryder, business professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business.

After withstanding the economic and political shockwaves of the 2001 terror attacks in New York, the subsequent War on Terror, and the dislocation caused by the 2008 economic recession, Hamilton, along with the rest of Canada, is finally “turning itself around.

“I’m not sure it is inevitable we will succeed,” Ryder told about 60 people at the Stoney Creek Chamber of Commerce luncheon Feb. 18 at LIUNA Gardens.

Despite the strategy by the city’s economic development office to move beyond steel and heavy industry – especially in light of losing U.S. Steel’s Burlington plant – Hamilton’s economy remains in a precarious situation, he says.

Ryder says seven out of 10 employers remain in the public sector. And once U.S. Steel leaves the city, he says Wal-Mart will become Hamilton’s third largest private sector employer.

“Hamilton needs private sector investment,” he says.

ArcelorMittal Dofasco seems to be booming, announcing plans to hire 1,000 workers. National Steel Car expects to recall about 300 of the 520 workers it laid off before Christmas, and Stackpole and Fibracast in the Ancaster Business Park are hiring people.

Hamilton’s output in manufacturing sector is projected to increase by two per cent in 2016. And the research-focused health care industry is the city’s biggest employer at 20,000 people.

Still, Ryder says Hamilton’s gaudy numbers reveals some not so shiny figures. Hamilton’s employment rate in 2015 was 5.4 per cent, the lowest since 1976, and below provincial and national averages. Hamilton’s actual employment numbers are much higher, since the city’s rate is lumped in with economic prosperous Burlington and Grimsby.