The Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently released their job report for the second quarter of 2017.  They report that almost 300 and 30 thousand jobs are left unfilled in Canada with 89-hundred unfilled in Manitoba. Jonathan Alward, the director of provincial affairs for Manitoba, says that those numbers aren’t the best way to judge how the province is doing.  He explains the numbers have stayed very close to what they were last quarter but if we look to another report that they do every month called their business barometer they’ve actually seen business optimism in the province has been very strong, actually before July it was at a five year high.  He says they have some other metrics that go along with that, the overall business health.  46 percent of members said their overall state of business health was very good compared to just 5 percent who said it was bad.

Alward added that there was an increase in vacancies in oil, gas, construction, manufacturing, transportation and hospitality, while there were decreases in information, arts, recreation and real estate.