Greenspace
Senior Member
Last council did exactly zero things to attract this kind of business to the city. Even if it's Edmonton Global's job or someone else, no one is really talking about it or has a plan. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
ChazYEG
Senior Member
Considering how rough the job market has been in Edmonton for anything non blue collar, I don't know if shrugging off ANY kind of jobs would be a good thing.
Are call centre jobs the best ones out there? Sure not.
Would I still take them? Absolutely. Some employment is better than none.
Edmonton could definitely use having high quality and high paying tech jobs, but if our officials have the same the mentality of some around here is definitely detrimental to the city as a whole.
Are call centre jobs the best ones out there? Sure not.
Would I still take them? Absolutely. Some employment is better than none.
Edmonton could definitely use having high quality and high paying tech jobs, but if our officials have the same the mentality of some around here is definitely detrimental to the city as a whole.
ChazYEG
Senior Member
You are not wrong. The company I work for is a good example. We're developing and marketing some cutting edge software, with global aspirations. The founders, and about half of the staff, is either from Edmonton or has close ties to the city, and would love moving back there, but there's no incentive to move, and absolutely no kind of outreach by city officials to make that happen. Even for expanding the business, in terms of staffing, better access to business travel options, etc, Edmonton would offer FAR BETTER conditions than Kelowna, and I could see a move happening if there was any degree of incentive
policyenthusiast
Senior Member
What kind of incentives would work on you & your team?
TAS
Senior Member
What kind of incentives were offered and outeach took place from Kelowna?
David A
Senior Member
If it doesn't involve some petro chemical facility or something else on the edge of the city or outside of it, our city doesn't seem very interested which partly explains why our downtown is languishing.
ChazYEG
Senior Member
None either, but the company was set up here as both founders were living here at the time (graduates from UBCO).
I think the biggest thing wouldn't even be a direct incentive, but just a perception that the city does more to promote itself and its businesses, to attract investors and talent. Some sort of financial incentive (active or passive) to set the office in downtown wouldn't be bad either (most of our team has a strong preference for active transportation and/or transit, including those with families).
policyenthusiast
Senior Member
Hopefully Daryn Edgar knocks it out of the park as the new CEO of Edmonton Global, because otherwise this seems like something the City would spent 5m on a "communications campaign" for.
ChazYEG
Senior Member
Which makes me sad. We're a company with only 12 employees generating about $1M in monthly revenue, and we're looking into expanding staff as business scales up. 75% of our staff is high paying, highly skilled IT jobs, and as we grow that proportion would likely decrease, but we'd add a few more white collar jobs to handle finance, marketing, etc, as well as some customer support positions (which would not be your typical call centre due to the nature of our product). Our 3-year plan is for 70-100 employees, most of which will likely be higher paying jobs in IT, health sciences and finance. Would be great to have it in Edmonton, but I don't see it happening, especially if we don't do it while we're still small.
MacLac
Senior Member
I do
I disagree, I like where our economy is at……Nevermind DT, I’m not mixing economy with DT as that is exactly what YYC does. I’m talking about our AI hub, Bio-Med Hub, Hydrogen Hub. All of which we dominate…..you don’t think that YYC would eat their first born to be any of those? Love the fact that Gilead has spent over $600M on this city and employes several hundreds of clinical, white lab coat type of jobs. I drove out to Lamont on the weekend and went “holy shit!” Look at all of these plants that employ 1000’s that pay low six figures at a min. While YYC is brining in companies like Infosys - Indian Call centre. Neo Financial…. CHINESE Tencent call centre financed so that they can launder their money in our country. I can go on about their 64,000 supposed Tech jobs that Ian is salivating over…..
ChazYEG
Senior Member
Speaking as someone who spent MONTHS looking for a job in Edmonton and was forced out of the city due to lack of any opportunities that were not either heavily specialized or blue collar, this sounds VERY entitled. I would've taken one of those call centre jobs to stay in Edmonton, as opposed to moving to Kelowna, at least to keep the lights on until I could find something in my field.
We don't need to ditch one to have the other, and that's what you seem to be unable to understand.
David A
Senior Member
One of the reasons YYC has a more vibrant downtown is because they actually care about it and pay some attention to attracting business to it, as opposed to our municipal government.
yeggator
Active Member
I’m pretty sure the loss of DeepMind is one of those things accounting for the decline.
Kosy123
Senior Member
Here's Edmonton and Calgary respectively. FWIW, CBRE just uses StatsCan data for these. We did move up 11 points in the ranking.
archited
Senior Member
With the connections that I have been making -- particularly with the U of A -- the AI, Machine Learning, and Robotics endeavors are gaining momentum, especially in the area of Agritecture. The requirements for employment are particularly favoring code writers, nano-mechanical engineers, battery and alternative energy engineers, Ag students (through the ALES faculty), and scientists (botanical studies) in the vertical farming field. Job growth in these areas will be strong for the foreseeable future in Edmonton.