FREDERICTON – Royal Bank of Canada is projecting New Brunswick has gained 1.0 per cent in economic growth in 2014 and is predicting a 1.8 per cent increase in 2015.
The growth comes after two years of declines and four years of job losses from 2010-13.
“We’ve seen a pick up in job creation especially in private services and just sort of a general easing in the headwinds that we’ve seen in housing so we think that’s commensurate with a general bettering of economic conditions this year,” said RBC Economist Gerard Walsh.
But University of New Brunswick economics professor Constantine Passaris said unemployment in the province will continue to be a problem heading into 2015.
“It may in fact worsen as New Brunswickers who have been laid off in the oil fields out West return to our province,” he said.
Passaris said the province needs to build on natural resources but cannot stop there.
“We need to embrace the new sectors of the new global economy, such as IT, and processing our natural resources with value added before we export them. This will create more employment opportunities and higher paying jobs in the future,” he said.
Walsh said a renewed optimism in the forestry sector and a pick-up in the mining industry are industries RBC will be watching.
The multi-billion dollar Picadilly potash mine in Penobsquis, N.B. is expected to ramp up production in 2015.
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