New Technology: Challenge and Change in the Prairie Labour Market

Aluin Gilchrist is a Vancouver-based Canadian government civil
litigation lawyer.

These are papers delivered at a prairie-wide conferencc held at Regina in October 1984.

“Persons like George Washington Carver are models for today. The son of a slave, who had very little, took the humble peanut and developed hundreds of marketable uses. Ideas are the new economic resource. The creative uses of products are the new economic potential” (D. John Seel, Naisbitt Group, p.7).

Technological changes cause disruption in the labor market, as they always have, but commonly lead to sustained booms related to capital replacement or new product demands. On the prairies, change will come reasonably slowly, but it is important not to miss opportunities for growth. “More jobs are likely to be lost from not applying new technologies than from short term technological displacement” (Graham F. Parsons, Saskatchewan Crown Management Board, p.44).

The nine papers and summation stress education (with training and skill development) as the prerequisite for reduction of unemployment and development of the “knowledge industry.” Automation means fewer jobs but if new technology is not adopted, jobs are lost not only in the sectors capable of being automated, but also in the support sectors. Productivity increases are essential for that success in international competition which will be essential if an acceptable standard of living is to be maintained.