British Columbia is hemorrhaging headquarters jobs as big companies consolidate elsewhere, replacing high-paying office work with an economy based on trade and tourism.
The province lost 29 percent of its head office jobs between 1999 and 2005. Though B.C. has low unemployment and is likely to keep adding jobs overall, just 53 of Canada's top 500 companies are based there, down from 58 in 2004, according to the Financial Post. One blog notes that you can buy an overpriced house in Vancouver, but you can't get a pizza, a burger or a coffee because there aren't enough people to do those jobs.
The trend matters because head offices cluster talent, and the jobs mean related work in law, accounting and other industries. according to the Business Council of B.C. The group wants the government to nurture mid-sized companies, cut taxes to make the province more appealing and "market Greater Vancouver to external corporate decision-makers."
Contrast the situation with Washington and Oregon. The Seattle area has five companies on the Fortune Global 500 list of top companies by sales: Costco, Weyerhaeuser, Microsoft, Paccar and Washington Mutual. Portland has Nike. Vancouver has none.
Portland and Seattle have lost major company HQ's in the last couple years. Seattle lost Boeing while Portland lost Fred Meyer. Portland was however able to gain Addidas.
Seattle has been losing lots of biotech companies as well recently which does not bode well either.
Posted by: Isaac Alexander | December 08, 2006 at 13:51
Have you seen any estimates of the actual economic cost of these HQ losses? It seems most of the evidence is anedotal. I'd like to see a study of how much all these related jobs are worth.
Posted by: brad meacham | December 09, 2006 at 12:22