Quote:
Originally Posted by sailor734
These recent developments in the port and rail service through Saint John are certainly good news. Although, I haven't seen any estimates about the impact on actual employment numbers.
Way back in the days of the 'winter port" I think I've read there were something like several thousand employed at the port during the height of the season. Of course in those days cargo handling was hugely labour intensive and ships were often docked for days on end. You'd also see numerous vessels anchored off the port waiting for a slip to open. As a kid I remember listening to CFBC before going to school in the morning and they would always announce the hiring needs of the port for that day for longshoreman ( numbers of different sized "gangs", number of lift jack operators, numbers of checkers etc)
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The 'winter port' was great for the city but it was gone with the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway and 24/7 ice breaking services on the St Lawrence. That was the mid-late 1950's and container shipping was virtually unheard of. Montreal has now maxed out it's container ship capacity (6000 TEUs) as shipping companies are building way beyond 6000 TEUs for efficiency.
Since nothing has changed for the PSJ container terminal since 2017 (the container terminal is still at 125K capacity) every increase made has been based on historic infrastructure capability, current performance, and future potential. Essentially everything is still "under construction".
When the second set of cranes are working for a calendar year and we have some data to process, we can look at this again.
With that understanding:
Counting only labour jobs directly at the container terminal in 2022 - 314,000 well paid hours with a positive future outlook. That is the equivalent of ~157 full time jobs. That is significantly higher than every year in recent history.
The trickle down effect of that is some multiple of 157+ full time jobs in all the transportation industries as well as added employment overall.
The entirety of the gains made so far is a result of shippers realizing the potential of Saint John as a destination port. That confidence is a result of good port management as well as the port's response to extenuating circumstances in 2021 that pushed the container terminal to it's limits, and then beyond. 2022 was 26K TEUs, or 21% above capacity. Those events were not in the plan but the response proved we could deliver above the advertised performance levels.
800K TEUs is over 5 times what was processed in 2022. This is only my lay person estimate but I think 1M+ hours is in the ballpark. That is the equivalent of 500+ good full time jobs with ancillary jobs being some multiple of that.
On top of that, when one business moves here because of the container port, you can start adding all those jobs as well.
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