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/1441359
OUR MOST ECONOMICALLY RESILIENT CITIES IN 2022 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 BCBUSINESS 31 DARREN HULL Carrying forward last year's theme of resilience, our eighth annual ranking of B.C.'s best cities for work once again examines 50 of the province's largest communities. With added consideration for social and environmental resilience, we throw a spotlight on the top regional performers and feature local businesses learning to navigate a post-pandemic world b y A N D R E W M A C A U L A Y Ashley Ramsay took a leap of faith back in early 2013 when she and her hus- band, Todd, acquired a Kelowna studio space to launch Yeti Farm Creative. "Todd, having been born and raised here, and myself, having spent half my childhood here, wanted to come back home after hav- ing our first child to build jobs in our own community," explains the CEO of the digital animation house. Nine years later, Yeti Farm—which pro- duces content for online platforms and streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix—has become one of Kelow- na's many homegrown technology success stories. Its roster of work includes animated series like Pete the Cat, Hotel Transylvania and Beat Bugs. After riding out the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company now faces a series of new hurdles. "The talent shortage in B.C. animation is pal- pable. It's gotten to a breaking point, [and] it's not just Kelowna," Ramsay says. "If anything, it's been easier for us to attract talent based on what we can offer in terms of work-life balance and a substantially lower cost of liv- ing," she notes. "But the price of homes is on the rise, so who is to say how long we will be able to offer these incentives to young people who come here to work at the studio." With Kelowna staying near the top in our eighth annual ranking of the province's best cities for work, Ramsay's assessment offers a glimpse of the challenges confronting B.C. businesses and communities as they manoeu- vre out of the pandemic. To assess our cities' abilities to withstand any further unpredictability heading into 2022, we've devised a modified set of 10 indicators with help from research partner Environics Analytics. (For details, see page 41.) Once again, this year's ranking explores aspects of economic resilience, such as growth, employment and household finances. BEST CITIES FOR WORK IN B.C.