Toronto is at risk of losing top talent
Toronto is one of the big winners is in the global war for talent, according to research I conducted with collaborators at the Boston Consulting Group.
This is good news in today’s era of remote work, which gives people more choice about where they can live. But rising housing prices and the reality and perception of rising crime and eroding public safety threaten that status.
Toronto ranks among a select group of “talent magnet cities,” which excel at both attracting and retaining talent, based on our survey of more than 25,000 knowledge workers and data on talent flows in and out of more than 75 leading global cities. Other cities in this elite group include London, Berlin, Singapore, Stockholm, Madrid, Melbourne and Vancouver. These cities offer a mix of economic opportunity and quality of life. Indeed, many of them rank highly on the Economist’s Most Livable Cities rankings.
This category contrasts with three other types of cities. New York, San Francisco, Paris, and especially Dubai and Abu Dhabi form a group of “high turnover cities,” which attract talent but do not do as well at retaining it. People move to them to get an education and start their careers, but they don’t plant deep roots.
Other cities do better at retaining talent but lag at attracting. Cities in this group tend to suffer from some kind of isolation — be it geographic, like Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, or linguistic and cultural, like Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Hong Kong’s inclusion shows what can happen to a once leading global superstar city when it is isolated by heavy-handed political interference.
Finally, there are “brain drain cities” that lag on both attracting and retaining talent. They tend to be large cities in emerging economies like Istanbul, São Paulo and Mumbai. While they attract talent from their surrounding regions, they tend to function as escalators; their experienced talent moves on to more established superstar cities.
Toronto’s status as a leading talent magnet city is something to celebrate, but ominous storm clouds loom on the horizon. Our survey asked knowledge-based professionals to rate and rank the key factors that would cause them to stay in or leave their current cities.
Almost four out of 10 respondents reported that they were dissatisfied with their cities and 25 per cent said they were actively or strongly considering moving. The three topranked factors were cleanliness, safety and housing affordability — topping career and business opportunities, amenities, quality of government services and medical care.
Toronto ranks among the world’s 10 least affordable cities to buy a home, alongside Hong Kong, Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Paris. Toronto’s median housing costs now average nearly 10 times its median income. This is more than three times greater than the rule of thumb for housing affordability, which is that housing should cost no more than three times income.
Crime and safety are growing problems as well. Though Toronto is still one of the safest large cities in the world — The Economist Intelligence Unit recently ranked it the safest major city in North America — property crime is rising, undermining the feeling of safety and security across the city.
More than 12,000 cars were stolen in Toronto in 2023, a figure that translates into one car taken every 40 minutes. As of March 18, 68 carjackings had been reported in the city, a 106 per cent increase over the first quarter of 2023.
The “broken window” theory of crime argues that it’s just these sorts of nuisance crimes than can undermine a community’s sense of safety. And it is also starting to undermine the city’s once stellar reputation as a place that is well managed, safe and secure.
A recent New York Times story blasted the headline “For Car Thieves, Toronto Is a ‘Candy Store,’ and Drivers Are Fed Up.” As San Francisco has learned, cities can lose their allure when seen to be unsafe, unclean and disorderly.
A yellow warning light is now flashing. We cannot afford to wait until it turns red.