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Edmonton Companies News & Discussion

CaptainBL said:
Calgary definitely gets its share of blue collar industrial type jobs and the necessary construction jobs too. For example, Green impact Partners is building a $1.2B ethanol plant in Calgary, de Havilland is building their aircraft manufacturing plant with 1,500 full time jobs just east of Calgary, there's a $210M wallboard manufacturing plant proposed for just outside Calgary, a $225M food protein processing facility just east of Calgary, and I could keep going on.

Calgary get its fair share of many industrial, blue collar, manufacturing or operating jobs as well. Its not at all like they get all the head offices and its ok because we get everything else.

Goes back to what a few of us are saying, Edmonton absolutely sucks at attracting professional jobs and companies. It's almost like there is no sanctioned group that is supposed to be attracting that type of investment or job creation. There is a large gap here that is not getting attended to. Its also interesting because I never hear or see or read anyone in the public who identifies this as an issue and/or identifies this as "hey we need to do a better job at attracting jobs to Edmonton AND we need to do a better at bringing jobs to downtown, lets action this".

Imagine if we had half the companies Calgary is attracting open their offices in downtown Edmonton rather than there and what impact that would have on our downtown and vacancy rate and transit use, etc.
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I haven’t heard of any of those industrial projects even start ground work yet. I think I’ll be dead and buried before the DeHavilland Dash 8 factory ever gets built
 
MacLac said:
I haven’t heard of any of those industrial projects even start ground work yet. I think I’ll be dead and buried before the DeHavilland Dash 8 factory ever gets built
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If the order book is promising they will proceed. If not investors will be pushing to delay and/or stop spend. But there are new aircraft entrants and existing competitors that are looking at all electric aircraft and a few for hydrogen. Will De Havilland survive even it commences plant construction or actually building a dozen proposed there? Idk.
 
ChazYEG said:
There are not enough white collar jobs in Edmonton in general, not just finance. Again, I will use myself as an example (and we have others in the forum like me), but it doesn't do me ANY good to hear a billion investments being announced for hundreds of blue collar jobs... It's almost inevitable that I'll have to leave Edmonton to build a career, unless I luck out a lot, and this is a common trend for business, accounting, economics, finance, law, IT... Do we REALLY want to be ONLY a blue collar job centre?
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It is time for a pressure campaign from prominent community members to address this once and for all.

Edmonton does have a solid base of finance, engineering, accounting, IT and legal employers but many are not 'highlighted' and seemingly forgotten about. The ingredients for growth are all here, we just need leadership with a push.
 
occidentalcapital said:
It is time for a pressure campaign from prominent community members to address this once and for all.

Edmonton does have a solid base of finance, engineering, accounting, IT and legal employers but many are not 'highlighted' and seemingly forgotten about. The ingredients for growth are all here, we just need leadership with a push.
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Yes, there is a solid base, but for whatever reasons we tend to put up with this or grumble quietly. We need to be more vocal and put more pressure on the agencies that are supposed to be diversifying things.
 
MacLac said:
edmonton.taproot.news

Game developers chart a new course

Edmonton's gaming scene owes much to trailblazer BioWare, but the next generation of developers is doing things differently.
edmonton.taproot.news edmonton.taproot.news

“YEG’s gaming development is 2 X as big as YYC’s.” Also, 10 gaming companies exist in YEG
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Maybe it's my age showing, but I would LOVE more focus on this. Personally think tying in more "indie game", "gaming", "esports" conventions and events in the city would be great steps. forward.
 
_urbanite said:
T.O. slips, but Canadian cities excel in CBRE Scoring Tech Talent ranking

"Five of eight Canadian markets improved their rankings, one held and two dropped. Canada has five of the Top-20 tech talent cities, including two in the Top-10....Waterloo Region moved up six spots to No. 18. Calgary — with a 61 per cent tech job growth rate, second in North America — improved seven places to No. 21. Quebec City rose four notches to No. 35, while Edmonton joined Toronto as the only Canadian markets to dip in the ranking, dropping four spots to No. 39."

Not necessarily good, but there's a silver lining here

"The markets with the highest tech job growth rates on the continent were all Canadian: the aforementioned Vancouver and Calgary, as well as Waterloo Region (52 per cent) and Edmonton (45 per cent)"
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I don't understand this part of the story:

"The total annual labour and real estate cost for a 500-person tech company occupying 60,000 square feet of office space ranged from US$32.68 million in Quebec City — the lowest in North America — to US$78.84 million in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The eight most affordable cities by this measure are Canadian, with Quebec City followed by Montreal, Edmonton, Waterloo Region, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary."

How is Edmonton not more affordable than Montreal (I don't know anything about Quebec City).
And how is Calgary less affordable than Vancouver and Toronto?
 
_urbanite said:
T.O. slips, but Canadian cities excel in CBRE Scoring Tech Talent ranking

"Five of eight Canadian markets improved their rankings, one held and two dropped. Canada has five of the Top-20 tech talent cities, including two in the Top-10....Waterloo Region moved up six spots to No. 18. Calgary — with a 61 per cent tech job growth rate, second in North America — improved seven places to No. 21. Quebec City rose four notches to No. 35, while Edmonton joined Toronto as the only Canadian markets to dip in the ranking, dropping four spots to No. 39."

Not necessarily good, but there's a silver lining here

"The markets with the highest tech job growth rates on the continent were all Canadian: the aforementioned Vancouver and Calgary, as well as Waterloo Region (52 per cent) and Edmonton (45 per cent)"
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I hate to say this because I know what response I am going to get from some on here but the main reason for Edmonton dropping in tech related job growth and Calgary having more is.............wait for it..................Calgary is gobbling up a lot more of the tech companies that are choosing to create jobs in Alberta.

The numbers tell the story. That is a factual objective statement. Edmonton is not doing a good enough job at what it was supposed to be good at 10-15 years ago which is.....tech.

That being said, considering there is literally no one group interested in attracting companies to Edmonton (Council and mayor dont/couldnt care less, Edmonton Global is effectively a glorified newsletter publisher of things and stuff Edmonton, the DBA and Puneeta work hard but that's not their mandate, Edmonton Chamber of Commerce doesn't have a large profile, Invest Alberta would stroke off Calgary with both hands if it could), I am truly surprised at the job growth in tech Edmonton does have. Now imagine only if we had any help whatsoever to propel momentum.
 
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TAS said:
I don't understand this part of the story:

"The total annual labour and real estate cost for a 500-person tech company occupying 60,000 square feet of office space ranged from US$32.68 million in Quebec City — the lowest in North America — to US$78.84 million in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The eight most affordable cities by this measure are Canadian, with Quebec City followed by Montreal, Edmonton, Waterloo Region, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary."

How is Edmonton not more affordable than Montreal (I don't know anything about Quebec City).
And how is Calgary less affordable than Vancouver and Toronto?
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Its good to get a sense of where we supposedly rank, but there does seem to be some confusing and contradictory things here.

We have a fairly good high growth rate and affordability, but yet our ranking went down. I would also think Toronto and Vancouver would be less affordable than Calgary.

I think the US has made a mistake in being overly restrictive on immigration so a lot of talented and skilled tech people are coming to Canada instead and that will help grow things in Canada.
 
_urbanite said:
T.O. slips, but Canadian cities excel in CBRE Scoring Tech Talent ranking

"Five of eight Canadian markets improved their rankings, one held and two dropped. Canada has five of the Top-20 tech talent cities, including two in the Top-10....Waterloo Region moved up six spots to No. 18. Calgary — with a 61 per cent tech job growth rate, second in North America — improved seven places to No. 21. Quebec City rose four notches to No. 35, while Edmonton joined Toronto as the only Canadian markets to dip in the ranking, dropping four spots to No. 39."

Not necessarily good, but there's a silver lining here

"The markets with the highest tech job growth rates on the continent were all Canadian: the aforementioned Vancouver and Calgary, as well as Waterloo Region (52 per cent) and Edmonton (45 per cent)"
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So I did read the report to the best of my ability. We are listed as a top job market.

We are also listed as one of the cheapest markets to do business in, in terms of one year company costs (for 500 employees and 60,000 sq ft of office space)
- Edm: $34 million
- Cal: $38 million
Edmonton is cheaper in terms of wage costs, while Calgary has cheaper office rent costs according to the report.

1689881852347.png


For people curious to compare, this report is the Jul 2022 one (https://mktgdocs.cbre.com/2299/957e...47cee1-897668710/2022-Scoring-Tech-Talent.pdf), not the current Jul 2023. The PDF for Jul 2023 can't be accessed on my end, however their web report (where I got all the information) is available here: https://www.cbre.com/insights/books/scoring-tech-talent-2023

*percentage changes are from 2017-2022
Calgary Tech Workforce: 52,200 (61%) - 19,700 increase
EDM Tech Workforce: 31,100 (45%) - 9,600 increase
Waterloo Region Workforce: 29,700 (52%)

1689883443782.png


Now here's the REALLY weird part.

1689881687561.png


As y'all can tell, the tech quality and cost for Edmonton is much much better in comparison to Calgary, our tech talent is both higher in quality, and cheaper in cost according to the report. The report also states:
Due in part to exchange rates, Waterloo, Vancouver and Edmonton in Canada provide the best value when it comes to cost and quality, followed by Madison, Pittsburgh and Detroit in the U.S.
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So honestly, not sure why Edmonton's rating went down in such a massive fashion. Once the local market reports show up, I'll give it a look and see. But honestly, one hypothesis I have is just Calgary has a larger and more well known profile, while Edmonton gets transplants once more is known about it, essentially mimicking migration patterns as well.
 
Kosy123 said:
As y'all can tell, the tech quality and cost for Edmonton is much much better in comparison to Calgary, our tech talent is both higher in quality, and cheaper in cost according to the report. The report also states:


So honestly, not sure why Edmonton's rating went down in such a massive fashion. Once the local market reports show up, I'll give it a look and see. But honestly, one hypothesis I have is just Calgary has a larger and more well known profile, while Edmonton gets transplants once more is known about it, essentially mimicking migration patterns as well.
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In bold - yes. See my comment in post #836. Calgary's profile is bigger because the City pushes, their Chamber of Commerce pushes, so does Invest Alberta and the government of AB, and Edmonton gets little to none of that.
 
There is a complacency by our city council that more blue collar jobs (actually many outside of the actual city boundaries) is fine and all we need. Maybe because it is easier and they don't need to do much work or they don't have the skills to do better. Importantly, I want to note, not just the current city council but most in the past.

I think likewise the Chamber of Commerce view reflects their current and past membership which reinforces the status quo. I wish they had more vision.

I sort of understand the shortcomings of the other two, but Invest Alberta is perhaps the biggest disappointment. They should know better.
 
TAS said:
Here is the response from Comms director from Invest Alberta about my inquiry to the CEO about lack of Edmonton announcements versus Calgary from this provincial organization - the CEO made a statement last week to expect several more announcements this fall of firms setting up in Calgary. No mention of Edmonton so I inquired about the outlook here.

"Thank you for your email and the opportunity to tell you about the outlook for Edmonton when it comes to attracting investment.

While we are proud of the recent announcements about companies that are setting up in Calgary, Edmonton is still an important area of focus that stands out as a vibrant economic hub for the province. Since being established in 2020, Invest Alberta has attracted companies that have invested nearly $20 billion in Alberta’s economy and created more than 27,000 jobs in Calgary, Edmonton, and across the province.

A priority for investors is often an available and growing pool of talent. The talent pool in Edmonton makes it a competitive destination for investment. With 130,000 enrolled students in eight post-secondary institutions, Edmonton’s talent pool is continually growing. The tech community in Edmonton is among the fastest growing in North America, with companies like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Jobber, and more. The University of Alberta is ranked 3rd globally in AI research and Edmonton is home the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Both position Edmonton as the destination for some of the world’s brightest minds in AI.

The Edmonton region is also attracting investment to the Industrial Heartland, an area with rich industrial land that’s leading the province and the country through the energy transition. Invest Alberta works closely with our metropolitan economic development partner, Edmonton Global, to support investment attraction in this sector and beyond.

Edmonton continues to shine as a great place for businesses to grow, innovate, and succeed. Invest Alberta’s team is strategically placed in Edmonton, Calgary, and 14 offices across the globe to share that story with potential investors."

Interesting that Invest Alberta can say to expect more announcements in YYC upcoming. And the outlook here - Edmonton is a vibrant economic hub with lots of students. Certainly the focus of this organization is centered on Calgary. This message also came from YYC based office.
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Brazil-Alberta Opportunities Forum

Explore the incredible potential for Brazilian businesses in Alberta. Space is limited and registration is required.
www.eventbrite.ca www.eventbrite.ca

Really sticking it to YEG eh?
 
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