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.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1351663
10 BCBUSINESS APRIL 2021 READ THIS By making virtual communication the new reality, COVID-19 has amplified a twin pandemic of loneliness, Riaz Meghji argues in Every Conversation Counts: The 5 Habits of Human Connection That Build Extraordinary Relationships. The veteran local television host (Citytv's Breakfast Television, CTV News, MTV Canada) shows businesses, leaders and employees a way forward by sharing what he's learned over the years about forging ties with others. For starters, try listening without distraction. Observing that the pandemic has turned everyone into broadcasters, Meghji also offers some tips for raising your Zoom game. Page Two Books 256 pages, hardcover, $19.95 • cooking equipment, office fur- niture, recreational vehicles, tennis rackets, gardening tools, crafting supplies. "The goods sector has been surprisingly resilient," says Ken Peacock, chief economist at the Business Council of B.C. This past November, exports actually reached higher levels than a year earlier. The construction industry that Jacob Bros is a part of has done relatively well. There have been some job losses, but B.C. never shut down construction, even partially, as some other provinces and states did. Major projects stayed on course despite the COVID shock—SkyTrain in Metro Vancouver, LNG in the north. Residential real estate continued to thrive, for rea- sons no one fully understands. Tech, forestry and agriculture all stayed strong or even did better. Film and TV produc- tion, which was halted for a while, has come back with a rigorous regime of testing. If the province is in better economic shape than most of the country, that perfor- mance disguises the fact that some important sectors—and many lives in them—have been devastated or seriously shel- lacked, with no end in sight. Two major areas sustained most of the damage. One was international tourism, which includes airports, hotels, high- end wilderness resorts, and luxury shopping in Vancouver and Victoria. The second was anything that runs on crowd events, from sports to theatres to music. Restaurants, which can be dependent on both, felt the secondary shocks, as did some personal services. Within the Lower Main- land, some restaurant groups saw suburban business pick up while their dining rooms in the central city sat nearly empty. "Our downtown core is a big concern," says Bridgitte Anderson, president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. Small businesses have struggled the most, her or- ganization's surveys keep showing: "They don't have the capacity or the resources to make the changes needed." The Lower Mainland saw more job losses than else- where in B.C., as forestry, min- ing and agriculture boomed in northern and Interior cities. But in smaller Interior towns without those industries, businesses shrank or grew de- pending on where pandemic money got channelled and how inventive operators got. In Ashcroft, the hardware store is doing 30 percent more business than usual, says Deb Arnott, general manager of Community Futures, the non- profit business-development service, in that area. The town councillor who runs the local bakery worked to entice cus- tomers, selling supplies, offer- ing online lessons, and pushing pictures of her cinnamon buns, pies and fresh eggs on a Face- book page followed by almost 1,200 people in a place with a population of 1,600. But the diners that used to depend on highway traffic are hurting. Tourism business varied wildly. Boutique hotels and specialty restaurants in To- fino, Whistler and Penticton were jammed until a health order in November advised against non-essential travel. But smaller, more remote operations, especially those that rely on out-of-province customers, suffered. In Lytton, Braden Fandrich's Kumsheen Rafting—which usually em- ploys 55 people—took on only about 15 staff last year. "Hav- ing no international tourists definitely affected us," says Fandrich, who estimates that his business was down about 65 percent overall for 2020. Scott Jacob lost nowhere near as much, but he still thinks it's going to be a hard slog, with perhaps 40 per- cent less work than normal. Though he's hopeful about one thing—2021 won't be as bad as last year. "I can't tell you I'm going to miss 2020," Jacob says. "I do not remember a year where I worked so hard for a passing grade." • G O F I G U R E ( the informer ) 365 Days of Solitude (and Counting) It's been one year since the pandemic changed almost every aspect of business, work and life. Here's a look at a few of the local impacts of COVID-19 by Melissa Edwards 2/3 of British Columbians say they're coping well with the pandemic 72,063 estimated business closures in B.C., March-October 2020 g 24.6% YoY 66,484 estimated launches g 14.3% YoY B.C.'s TOP 5 INDUSTRY WINNERS AND LOSERS BY EMPLOYMENT, DECEMBER 2019 VS. 2020 UTILITIES g 55.1% AGRICULTURE g 14% NATURAL RESOURCES g 13.7% MANUFACTURING g 8.4% PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SERVICES g 6.9% CONSTRUCTION j 11.7% INFORMATION, CULTURE, RECREATION j 9.2% ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICES j 8.5% TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING j 4.7% FINANCE, INSURANCE, REAL ESTATE, RENTAL AND LEASING j 3.5% B.C. workers supported by the federal pandemic wage subsidy in March vs. October 2020: 444,490/247,240 Average monthly payout: $2,039/$807