HarrisonMik

According to globalknowledge.com, While solidified tech hubs such as San Francisco’s Silicon Valley attract quite a substantial amount of talent, Toronto is stepping in with a few key advantages to pull the talent more north. One major component of success for attracting a large talent pool in Toronto and in Canada as a whole is its progressive immigration policies. Canada received more than 800,000 immigrants from over 230 nations in 2017, this is a strategic move to counteract the aging working population(globalknowledge.com). Unsurprisingly, this combined with good social security nets like free healthcare and access to quality education resulted in a huge boom for tech companies receiving a wide variety of talented job seekers( “8 Reasons Startups Choose to Start Up in Canada”, 2019).

According to F, Salmon of inc.com, another big pull factor for Toronto’s start-up sector is its corporate tax for a company’s first $500,000.00. The corporate tax rate for these situations in only 3.5%, this leaves more financial flexibility for these new or smaller companies to grow in future years (Salmon, F. 2018). Toronto as of 2018 also boasted an employment growth of around 4.5% resulting in a thriving, growing job landscape (Salmon, F. 2018).

What forces are working against the emerging tech growth?

Housing prices in Toronto have been rising to substantial levels. As of June 2018, the average one-bedroom in Toronto would cost a renter approximately $1,532.00 per month, while this is lower than in San Francisco where the same apartment would cost $3,239.00 per month, it is definitely a detractor when it comes to encouraging people to move to the city(Salmon, F. 2018).

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Toronto is a fantastic, culturally rich city with some very exciting growth opportunities in the future.

Growth:

According to many online sources, Toronto is emerging as a global powerhouse for the tech industry in the last 7 years. According to Canadianmanufacturing.com, Toronto has introduced 82,100 tech related jobs between 2012-2017(canadianmanufacturing.com, 2018). This out paced even San Francisco, famous for its “Silicone Valley” by about 4270 jobs. (www.canadainmanufacturing.com, 2018)

What is so special about Toronto?:

According to Rubin, J, Toronto is the largest and fastest growing city in Canada, Toronto has a huge talent pool for tech giants as well as start ups to pull from. This can be attributed largely to the huge volume of universities and other post secondary education centres found in GTA. These establishments further grow the talent pool. According to Doug Palmer, VP of Commercial Banking for BMO, when discussing the tech sectors in Toronto he stated, “This is absolutely sustainable growth” (Rubin, J. 2019). With its stable growth projections and over 4000 tech related start up companies Toronto’s future economic development shows great promise.

Amazon and Toronto:

According to canadianmanufacturing.com, the bidding war to name Toronto as Amazon’s new destination for development had many Torontonians very excited. When Toronto was overlooked, many reported this change in plan as a loss for the city’s tech growth. However, an interesting point was made by Doug Palmer, VP of commercial banking for BMO. With Amazon no longer settling down in Toronto this gives much more opportunities for the cities start up firms to really multiply and expand. The risk associated with Amazon is it would in many ways shut down this small-time business growth, pulling away a huge percentage of the city’s best tech talent. In many ways Amazon’s choice not to locate in Toronto might have been a blessing in disguise for the emerging tech hub (Shepardson, D. 2018).

References:

Rubin, J. (2019, February 05). Toronto’s tech industry on the rise: Report. Retrieved June 13, 2019,    from https://www.thestar.com/business/2019/02/05/torontos-tech-industry-on-the-rise-      report.html

Toronto set to become world-leading tech hub, says KPMG. (2018, March 28). Retrieved June 13,       2019, from https://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/technology/toronto-set-become-            world-leading-tech-hub-says-kpmg-210706/

Business Radio. (n.d.). The Next Silicon Valley? Why Toronto Is a Contender. Retrieved June 13, 2019, from https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-next-silicon-valley-why-toronto-is-a-contender/

Toronto ranked tops for tech jobs growth out of 50 Canadian and U.S. cities. (2018, July 25). Retrieved June 13, 2019, from https://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/manufacturing/toronto-ranked-tops-for-tech-jobs-growth-out-of-50-canadian-and-u-s-cities-216570/

Amazon says it plans to create 600 new tech jobs in Toronto [UPDATED]. (2018, December 18). Retrieved June 13, 2019, from https://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/human-resources/amazon-says-it-plans-to-create-600-new-tech-jobs-in-toronto-224051/

Shepardson, D. (2018, November 13). Amazon picks New York, Virginia for new HQ2 – Toronto is officially out. Retrieved from http://globalnews.ca/news/4657393/amazon-nyc-split-hq2/

8 Reasons Startups Choose to Start Up in Canada. (n.d). Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://www.globalknowledge.com/ca-en/resources/resources-library/articles/8-reasons-startups-choose-to-start-up-in-canada/

Salmon, F. (2018, June 07). Want Your Startup to Succeed? Move to Toronto. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://www.inc.com/magazine/201806/felix-salmon/toronto-next-great-startup-hub.html