With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
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2021 RANK COMMUNITY FIVE-YEAR POPULATION GROWTH (10% WEIGHT) SHARE OF POPULATION AGED 65+ (5%) HOUSEHOLD FINANCIAL VULNERABILITY (15%) SHARE OF WORKFORCE IN PUBLIC ADMINIS- TRATION (5%) IMMIGRANT COMPONENT OF GROWTH (5%) 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 12 24 21 22 8 31 34 36 18 30 12 6 44 38 19 17 29 41 2020 RANK VERNON 7.3% 25.3% 1.2% 104 3.2% PITT MEADOWS 8.2% 16.9% 2.2% 113 7.1% CITY OF LANGLEY 8.4% 19.8% 2.5% 126 4.0% NANAIMO 8.8% 22.4% 2.0% 107 5.0% PENTICTON 6.3% 28.4% 1.2% 103 5.5% KAMLOOPS 8.3% 18.7% 1.2% 112 5.6% DUNCAN / NORTH COWICHAN 6.8% 27.0% 1.4% 109 4.6% SAANICH 5.5% 21.1% 2.6% 91 10.9% MISSION 10.6% 15.1% 1.2% 122 5.1% MAPLE RIDGE 10.6% 15.6% 2.0% 118 5.5% FORT ST. JOHN 4.5% 8.1% 4.8% 112 4.4% PRINCE GEORGE 6.6% 15.1% 1.5% 116 5.8% CAMPBELL RIVER 8.2% 23.3% 0.9% 122 3.9% VICTORIA 7.2% 21.2% 3.2% 98 10.7% DELTA 7.7% 19.9% 3.4% 102 4.4% BURNABY 6.3% 16.5% 7.2% 99 3.8% POWELL RIVER 2.6% 29.0% 0.9% 114 5.3% BACK TO WORK—SLOWLY The province's job market looked bleak over the spring of 2020. Unemployment rates roughly tripled from historic lows, reaching as high as 16 percent in the Koo- tenays in June. The summer months saw numbers rebound as most regions dipped back under 10 percent by September. The Northeast communities of Fort St. John (No. 28) and Dawson Creek (No. 48) led the pack heading into the fall. Peacock highlights a recurring theme: "Most of the job losses are in the Metro Van- couver area." Not including the province's other major metros—Victoria, Kelowna and Abbotsford—"the number of people working in that rest-of-B.C., small-town aggregate is up from February," he reveals. Metro Vancouver's slower employment recovery has contributed to the weaker showing of its municipalities in this year's ranking, as captured by our change in jobs and unem- ployment rate indicators. On a cheerier note, even in Metro Vancouver there are some positive employment trends. Wholesale trade, the first industry to regain and exceed pre- pandemic employment, is most heavily concentrated in the Lower Mainland. That's helped keep communities like Abbotsford (No. 16), Pitt Meadows (No. 19), the City of Langley (No. 20), Mission (No. 26) and Maple Ridge (No. 27) com- petitively placed in this year's list. THE IT FACTOR Many international technolog y companies have benefited from the pandemic—Zoom is a prime example—so it's hardly shocking that the tech industry has been another bright spot for Metro Vancouver. Most notable is Amazon's Sep- tember announcement that it would add 3,000 jobs and absorb more office space in downtown Vancouver. Greg Malpass, founder and CEO of Burnaby-based Traction on Demand, a large consulting partner and app devel- oper for the popular online sales platform Salesforce, is quick to point out the bigger picture. "The truth is, local industry has created way more jobs than Amazon has," 50 BCBUSINESS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 BEST CITIES FOR WORK IN B.C.