How to create high paying jobs (hint it involves creating lower paid jobs)

Sometimes I read or hear grand pronouncements about the workforce. We are not creating enough good paying jobs! My child graduated with a professional degree and can’t find work!

Using Labour Force Survey data - annual data for New Brunswick - there was a 9,400 net increase in professional and management jobs between 2022 and 2025. There was a 20,200 increase in non-professional jobs (including trades) over the same timeframe. I would put it to you that most of the net new jobs created were related to the rapid population growth over that period.

So, 2.2 non-professional jobs created for every professional job. I would submit to you that if we didn’t have the workforce for the non-professional jobs, we wouldn’t see the growth in professional jobs.

I have studied labour markets for 30+ years, and well functioning labour markets meet demand with supply across a wide spectrum of occupations. You won’t need more civil engineers if you don’t have the construction trades to do the actual work. You won’t need doctors if you don’t have nurses. There is also a strong linkage between all the lower to moderately paid service industry jobs - retail, personal services, transportation, etc. and the creation of new professional jobs - population growth requires lots of workers across the spectrum - that in turn leads to demand for CPAs, lawyers, engineers, etc.

So, if you want more professional jobs for your kids, you need to ensure the labour market is meeting the demand for non-professional jobs. In 2025 New Brunswick, there were 2.5 non-professional jobs for every 1 professional/management job. Maybe this will change in the future but for now you should keep this ratio in mind.

You can focus on the creation of professional jobs that are not based on ‘local’ market demand. There are accountants, engineers, financial planners, software engineers, insurance adjusters, and graphic designers living in New Brunswick that do work for clients outside New Brunswick. That’s called economic development - but it is getting increasingly harder to do.

If you ignore the non-professional workforce your economy starts to grind to a halt. There is a reason why there are a half dozen food delivery services offered in Toronto and urban centres in Atlantic Canada with 30,000+ that have none. Essentially, there are not enough people who want to work for the food delivery companies.

In the past few years, I have heard many stories like this: “we would put another assisted living facility in community x but there are not enough workers”, “we can’t find enough workers to do the level of forest management we would like to do”, “a new hotel was interested in our community but was discouraged after considering the available workforce.

If you look at the Q1 job vacancies in New Brunswick, they are up 18% over Q1 2025 and they run the gamut of occupation. The top vacancies were in nursing and health assisting jobs (nurses aides, etc.). Support occupations in food and accommodations were second. Trades helpers and labourers were up there. retail salespersons and cleaning occupations - there were 265 vacancies for cleaners in Q1 2026.

A well functioning labour market matches supply and demand.

People complain to me that I am too focused on low-wage jobs. I’m not. I spend my days working with clients on how to grow the IT industry, engineering services, value-added forest products, mining, etc. But if you ignore a large segment of workforce demand you will get a lot of bad outcomes from a stunted tourism and agricultural economy to people moving out of their community because there are no dental hygienists, pet groomers, physiotherapist and baristas.

Finally, a word about supply. Again, a well functioning labour market has a good mix of 15–18-year-olds looking for first work experience, 19–24-year-olds working in service industries while studying and second income earners in households looking for a flexible and low to moderate-skilled occupation - along with all those looking for skilled trades roles, professional jobs, management jobs and entrepreneurial ventures.

To conclude. If you want more professional jobs and management jobs, boost the population and create more local demand. Between 2022 and 2025 the population in New Brunswick increased faster than Ontario and the increase in net non-professional jobs was considerably faster here. You can also create more professional and high paying jobs -through investment in export-focused high paying industries such as mining, professional services, information technology, R&D, etc. Oh, BTW, every 1,000 international students supports dozens of good paying jobs in the post-secondary education sector.