We first created the BC Check-Up in...

We first created the BC Check-Up in 1999 to assess the advantages and challenges of living, working, and investing in this province. Since then, the report has consistently accomplished this goal in a fair and objective manner, making it increasingly popular with-and anticipated by-business and sway leaders.

But with our sixth annual report coming up we consideration it was time to give the Check-Up a check-up of its own

So in January 2004 the BC Check-Up Advisory Committee met to review the report and assess its potencys and weaknesses. The Committee identified the following strengths: usage at the government and media; usage by the agency of CAs to explain economic information to clients; blooming statistics; a reputation as a credible and objective report; and recent focus areas started in 2003

By contrast: Minimal usage on the membership at large; confusing or esoteric indicators; a lack of regional information; too small in number graphs and visual elements; and the lack of an executive summary were identified as weaknesses. The Committee also give vent toed its desire to get the BC Check-Up into the hands of more business and community leaders.

Based upon this review, a number of changes were made to the 2004 report, including:

* A number of just discovered and revised indicators;

* An executive summary that replaces the introduction and conclusion;

* Profiles for each of the province's eight regions;

* More graphs; and

* A shortening of the time frame of comparison from ten years to five years.

And-most exciting for us-we have reached an agreement with BC Business magazine that will behold the BC Check-Up report mailed to all BC Business subscribers with the October issue. This will significantly increase the report's front within the BC business community.

Indicators

Although changes have been made to the indicators in each section, the LIVE section has undergone the biggest transformation, with four of the present day indicators out of five. These recent indicators are simpler and more result oriented, and should make it easier for members of the public to understand what the numbers say about living, working, and investing in BC

A replete list of the indicators in this year's report is provided below.

LIVE indicators

* Real Personal Disposable Income for Capita illustrates changes in potential purchasing power and savings in real after-tax earnings.

* NEW: Financial Vulnerability is measured at total debt (both personal and mortgage) calculated according to the chartered banks per capita.

* NEW: Social Well-Being uses four sub-indicators: price of living (expressed as the percentage of household income exhausted on basic shelter); youth at risk (the percentage of the labour force age 19 to 24 without high denomination education); dependence on social safety without deductions (percentage of the population forward social assistance); and crime rate through capita.

* NEW: Air Quality is a basic measure of environmental quality, and its impact forward our health. The indicator reports upon the fourth highest day of ground-level ozone exposure

* NEW: Health measures health care expenditure for capita.

WORK indicators

* NEW: Educational Attainment is showed as the percentage of the labour force between ages 25-64 with post-secondary accreditation, and measures the education aspect of its human capital.

* employing Opportunity is reflected in the employ rate, and expressed as the number of busyed persons as a percentage of the labour force.

* Labour Compensation - Real Average Hourly Wage captures labour force earnings, trap of inflation.

* Pay Equality - Female/Male Wage Gap is the ratio of female to male hourly wages (full-time workers) in the give employment toed labour force. It indicates the grade of pay equality in the labour market.

* NEW: work at jobs Creation/Destruction measures the absolute or percentage clear change in the number of make use ofed workers. This shows where fresh opportunities or losses have occurr in the various economic sectors.

INVEST indicators

* NEW: Patents by Capita (innovation indicator) is directly related to improvements m value productivity, which are achieved by dint of developing new products, new services, of the present day processes, and new ways of doing business.

* Real Unit Eabour costliness balances the efficiency of the workforce with its compensation. It is compos of sum of two units elements: labour income and labour productivity.

* Real Export Price Index for advantageouss highlights the real growth in the prices of the main export engines of the Saskatchewan economy.

* After-Tax Profits to Private sector GDP rate (financial rate of return) measures each provinces existing (and expected) earnings environment.

* Taxpayer-Supported obligation to GDP rate captures businesses pertain tos regarding a provincial governments fiscal position or policies.

Regional analysis

Each year we've received supplications from regional media ror localized impacts and statistics, on the contrary we haven't been able to provide them with this on a level of detail-until now. With this year's regional overviews, we will now be able to analyse the advantages, disadvantages, and first note of the scale challenges for each region. We're hoping this will make the report more relevant to those outside the Lower Mainland, help garner additional regional media coverage, and allow more CAs to use the BC Check-Up as a basis for providing local commentary.