Photo courtesy of Ed Holder's campaign website
In his first State of the City address, Mayor Ed Holder called on city leaders to work together to put 13,000 more Londoners to work.
Holder delivered a speech to a record crowd of 1,400 at London’s Convention Centre on Thursday morning. The annual gathering, hosted by London’s Chamber of Commerce, is the largest event of its kind in Canada.
“It’s the job equivalent of bringing 13 big businesses to London,” Holder said. He seems eager to take on the endeavour with his new task force, London Jobs Now.
He says the task force is a partnership between his office, the London Economic Development Corporation, post-secondary schools, and a large local employer, Nestle.
Holder’s pledge is similar to that of Joe Fontana, who pledged to create 10,000 jobs if elected as London mayor. He won the 2010 election, but his term ended prematurely after a criminal conviction related to his time as MP.
Referring to current Statistics Canada data, the Mayor explained how to fill jobs when the city seems to be in a good place, with a record-low unemployment rate.
“One answer lies in the large number of London unemployed who do not appear to be looking for a job and are, therefore, not included in the unemployment rate,” he said. “Our real not-employed rate, when we include all Londoners ages 25 to 64 who are not working, is a staggering 28%. That rate is the highest of 10 similarly-sized cities in Ontario. More meaningfully, that rate translates to 77,000 Londoners in their prime working years who don’t have a job. If we were to lower our not-employed rate to the average of those 10 cities we would put 13,000 more Londoners to work.”
Holder also shared his other priorities, which he deems essential for job growth. Among others, these included addressing the needs of London’s poor through new jobs, expanding the current downtown project called Informed Response, and improving city transportation to get Londoners to their schools and jobs on time.
He encouraged Londoners to think more powerfully about the community’s economic role. “At the end of the day this was a speech about London working together. I am calling on London to lever its current economic strength to put 13,000 of its residents to work and to tackle the housing, transportation, safety, and construction permit issues that are essential to making those new jobs a reality.”
