Will a robot be doing your job in 10 years? + MORE Jun 15th

Reports that the NHL will award a costly expansion team to Las Vegas, and not Quebec City, may actually help the Montreal-based telecom company’s stock

Canadian workers expecting to remain viable in the face of increasing labour force automation will need to focus on training for more highly-skilled occupations that still rely on humans’ “cognitive advantage over technology,” a new report concludes.
Researchers from the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Ryerson University found that nearly 42% of Canadian jobs are at high risk of being restructured or eliminated altogether by existing advanced robotics and artificial intelligence over the next 10 to 20 years. These mainly include lower paying occupations requiring less education, which tend to be more routine, administrative and service-oriented, such as a retail salesperson or a transport truck driver.
On the other hand, jobs that are considered to be at a low risk of being replaced by automated technology are linked to high skill levels and higher earnings, such as management and jobs in science, technology, engineering and math. In fact, these types of low-risk occupations are projected to produce nearly 712,000 net new jobs for Canadians between 2014 and 2024 while lines of work at high risk of automation are only expected to add 396,000 jobs over the same time period, according to the report…

PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland City Council voted Wednesday to move forward with a plan to foreclose on so-called “zombie homes” for the first time in 50 years as the city grapples with a swelling population and skyrocketing home costs that are locking new homeowners out of the market.
Commissioners and the mayor voted 4-0 in favour of the plan, with one member absent. The vote targets five of the city’s worst abandoned properties, the first part of a long-term plan to free up housing in an overheated market while clearing out squatters who have plagued developing neighbourhoods outside the city’s hip core for years. They also voted to alter city code so Portland can sell a foreclosed property for its market value and not just for what’s owed in liens.
“What they are doing is cynically manipulating the system and the real estate market to enjoy the rise of property values, but leave the problems to the city and their neighbours,” Mayor Charlie Hales said of the absentee owners before the vote…

OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in Canada dropped 2.8 per cent month-over-month in May.
The number of sales through the association’s MLS system was down in about 70 per cent of all markets, led by B.C. and Ontario where the number of homes listed for sale fell.
The number of newly listed homes fell by 3.2 per cent in May compared with April.
The Canadian housing market puts us all at risk »
Compared with a year ago, sales in May were up 9.6 per cent.
The hot markets of Vancouver and Toronto helped push the national average price of a home sold in May to $509,460, up 13.2 per cent from a year ago.
Excluding Vancouver and Toronto, the average price for a home sold in May was $375,532, up 9.1 per cent from May 2015. Excluding British Columbia and Ontario as a whole, the average in May was down 0.7 per cent year-over-year to $310,007.
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Mr. Robertson, 69, is the head of anti-money laundering at Bank of Montreal and has been a chartered accountant for more than 35 years