Calgary needs more hi-tech workers, says agency

The top brass at Calgary Economic Development says the city needs to look to the tech industries to keep the economy competitive with other major Canadian cities.

Even with the “historic recession in the rear-view mirror,” Mary Moran, CEO of Calgary Economic Development (CED), said the city’s pool of tech-savvy talent is too shallow to attract big-name tech giants.

She called the city’s failed bid to woo Amazon’s HQ2 a “wake-up call,” saying one of the reasons the company passed on Calgary was a lack of skilled labour in the tech sector.

“We have really, really good talent here,” she said, adding diverse talent has always been one of the city’s strong economic draws. “But what we don’t have is talent that will help us drive toward the new economy.”

That includes software engineers, data scientists, coders and programmers — talent that other major Canadian cities have to spare.

At the annual Report to Community on Wednesday, Moran told the crowd of Calgary ’s business who’swho software engineers only make up 25 per cent of the city’s total engineering talent, significantly fewer than Vancouver’s 49 per cent or Toronto’s 50 per cent.

Moran said there is a threepronged approach to bolster the city’s technological ranks up to around 50 per cent, a target she said is reachable because of Calgary’s diverse industries in agriculture, energy and logistics.

Prong one is the provincial government’s Economic Growth and Diversification Act, creating 3,000 new student spaces dedicated to technology at Alberta’s post-secondary institutions.

The second approach is aimed at people with an engineering degree who want “to pivot their careers” towards the tech industry through diploma programs, including the University of Calgary’s upcoming 12-month software engineering certificate program and similar programs at Bow Valley College and SAIT.

And last, Moran said CED will be actively recruiting talent from other cities and jurisdictions, namely Waterloo, Toronto and Vancouver.

“So we are going to high-cost areas — like Toronto or Vancouver, Silicon Valley — where cost of living is very expensive, and we are going in and offering ‘Come back to Calgary’ or ‘Come to Calgary where you can have a greater cost of living and great quality of life with the Rocky Mountain playground an hour away,’ ” she said.

Aside from the notable lack of tech talent, the message from Moran and such guest speakers as ARC Energy Research Institute’s Peter Tertzakian was one of positivity and “changing the narrative” from adversarial to co-operative between the petroleum and renewable energy sectors.

“We need both,” Tertzakian said, adding hard times felt by oil and gas producers and innovations in the renewable sector provides opportunity for companies to think about cleaner, carbon-reduced petroleum production.

Moran also applauded the creation of the city’s $100-million Opportunity Calgary Innovation Fund, aimed at filling Calgary’s empty downtown office spaces and jump-starting the economy. The fund went live Wednesday and Moran said a dozen companies downloaded forms to apply to the fund by noon that same day.