In US, many people who complain that they don't find jobs even during times like these, when the economy is doing well, only have themselves to blame. As per my observation, such people are not geographically mobile ie they are unwilling to relocate. Also, even if they are willing to relocate, they put onerous conditions such as asking a prospective employer to pay their relocation costs, which makes them uncompetitive vis-à-vis local candidates. If people were more amenable to moving around across US, the unemployment rate would go down drastically, and overall productivity would considerably improve. Also, the nature of the US labour market and Canadian labour market are very different.
Canadian labour market is segmented based on province. For instance; Ontario is the hub for the financial services industry. British Columbia is the hub for film making, forestry and resources. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are known for agri-business. Alberta is a centre for the Oil & Gas industry, and so on. Now, one could argue that the US too has such segmentation. For instance; financial services/banking/capital markets is concentrated in NYC. Insurance in Hartford. Hedge funds in Greenwich (Connecticut). Entertainment industry in LA. Advertising industry/fashion/publishing in NYC. Hi-tech/IT in the Bay area (California), Meat packing industry in the Midwest and so on. However, I have observed that large companies tend to have regional headquarters in various states. Example, Chicago serves as the mid-west regional headquarters for most big US companies. Those regional HQs tend to generate lot of employment. That happens because the size of US companies is so massive, and many of them tend to have global operations, which accounts for their large size. Most Canadian companies tend to be focused on domestic market or at the most, on the north American market. The NAFTA agreement has spoilt all Canadian companies, and made them lazy, because they have a ready market available in the US, so they don't make much of an effort to export to other countries. In addition, I find that even though industry sectors are concentrated in specific states in the US, they are also more fragmented/dissipated than in Canada. That is a direct consequence of the way population is distributed across US. Most US states have larger populations, in comparison to the distribution of population in Canadian provinces. In Canada; Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary account for majority of Canada's population, even though Canada has 13 provinces. Most of those provinces have large areas that are sparsely inhabited. That too has partly contributed to the clustering of industry sectors in specific provinces. Due to better distribution of population in US across all states, demand for goods and services is more evenly distributed across US, in comparison to Canada. Cost of goods and services is also much cheaper than in Canada, since companies benefit from economies of scale. US is a 15 trillion dollar economy with a population of 350 million while Canada is a 1.2 trillion dollar economy with a population of 35 million. During the last 5 years that I have stayed here in Canada, I have seen lot of American companies flee Canada. After trying out the Canadian market for a while, most of them have sold off their operations to Canadian companies. Canadian economy tends to create oligopolies in virtually every industry sector (5 banks, 2 insurance companies, 3 telecom companies, handful of media companies etc). That in turn reduces labour mobility and also has an impact on productivity (due to lack of competition as well as inability of fewer employers to absorb available workforce). Due to all of these reasons, employment opportunities are much better in US than in Canada. In the US, as long as you are willing to relocate, you will always find a job.
