Toronto best Canadian city for foreign tech firms: CBRE
Toronto is the best bet for technology companies looking to set up shop in a Canadian city, according to an annual ranking from one of the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firms.
The high concentration of tech jobs and high-quality labour from post-secondary institutions in Canada’s largest city outweighed its high real estate costs, propelling it to No. 1 spot on CBRE Canada’s second annual ranking of top markets for tech workers and employers.
Ottawa took second prize on the list released Thursday, followed by Vancouver, Montreal and Waterloo Region. Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Winnipeg and London rounded out the Top 10, in that order.
In the latest ranking of cities vying to be Silicon Valley North, the real estate consultancy rated cities based on the volume of tech jobs, education, hightech clustering and cost competitiveness. It found real estate costs come a very distant second to available talent when companies are deciding on location.
“Talent will almost always trump cost,” CBRE Canada executive managing director Paul Morassutti said in an interview.
Waterloo was the big surprise on the list this year, up three spots from last year due to “explosive” growth in the number of tech jobs, he said. It’s good news for a city rattled by BlackBerry Ltd.’s fall from one of the world’s top companies to a small software player.
“The breakup of BlackBerry, while a little bit ugly when it first happened, ultimately has proven to be a good thing for Waterloo,” Morassutti said.
“It unleashed a wave of innovative talent that has gone on to a whole variety of different startup type of businesses.”
Waterloo added 8,400 tech jobs from 2011 to 2016, a 65.6-per-cent increase. That’s the second-fastest growth rate in North America after Charlotte, N.C., according to CBRE.
On a North America scale, however, Toronto and Vancouver topped their Canadian counterparts, Morassutti said. They respectively added 51,300 and 17,500 tech jobs over the same period.
“On a value for cost basis, Toronto and Vancouver are the best markets in North America when you factor in costs and quality of talent,” he said. “I think that’s a pretty impressive testament to the depth of quality and talent that we have in our major markets.”
The report comes out as Amazon.com Inc. weighs options for a second headquarters for 50,000 employees. Every city on CBRE’s list is involved in a bid to woo Amazon’s HQ2, or at least considered one.
While Morassutti said the CBRE report wasn’t intended as fodder for HQ2 sales pitches, he said Toronto stacks up particularly well when considering the lower Canadian dollar, health care costs, local talent and immigration policies. If he were a betting man, however, he’d guess an American city will win based on the political environment.