Metro: Where do the jobs go?

Drilling down to the municipal level, it is interesting to note that the seven fastest-growing municipalities in the Lower Mainland were all located on the region’s periphery. The District of Squamish experienced the fastest job growth in the region between 2006 and 2011, by far, at 25 percent. …

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Surrey had the second-fastest growth rate at 17 percent, having added 19,800 jobs between 2006 and 2011. Port Moody’s 850 additional jobs represented a 13 percent growth rate, making it the third-fastest growing municipality, while the District of Langley, Abbotsford, Port Coquitlam, and Chilliwack each grew at a rate of between eight and nine percent. Employment growth in all other municipalities was below the City of Vancouver’s six percent growth rate.

Despite a relatively slow growth rate (six percent), Vancouver added the greatest number of jobs between 2006 and 2011, at 21,135; following close behind was Surrey, which added 19,800. The number of jobs added in Burnaby, at 5,885, placed that city in a distant third place within the region.

At the other end of the growth spectrum, White Rock and Coquitlam experienced marginal employment losses (40 and 425 jobs lost, respectively), while Mission, Whistler, and Delta experienced more significant declines that ranged between 1,500 and 4,900 jobs.

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How did employment on our main industries change?

Relative to total job growth of five percent, employment in Public Administration grew by seven times the regional average, or by 35 percent, between 2006 and 2011; this was the result of the public sector creating 16,550 net additional jobs throughout the Lower Mainland.

Vancouver accounted for more than a quarter of the increase in employment in this sector, having added 4,395 net new jobs in Public Administration over five years. …

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While most industries maintained their respective shares of regional employment between 2006 and 2011, the above-average growth in Public Administration (35 percent) resulted in this sector’s share of regional employment growing from four to six percent. In contrast, Manufacturing saw the largest movement in the other direction, going from nine percent of the region’s employment in 2006 to seven percent in 2011 thanks to its 19 percent decline.

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A couple of interesting takeaways…

First, the region’s jobs base is growing—to the tune of almost 59,000 net additional jobs between 2006 and 2011. This growth is being driven by Education, Health Care, Social Services, and Public Administration sectors, which accounted for three-quarters of total net job growth in the region.

Second, the Lower Mainland’s more peripheral communities are experiencing relatively rapid jobs growth when compared to the historical core of the region. This means that as this summer comes to a close and people return from summer break, folks will be heading back to jobs that are spread out across a more diverse geographic landscape than has been seen in the past.

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I would note, however, that while jobs may be more dispersed than the centre-focused region of the past, the kinds of jobs in education, health care and public administration still concentrate in regional town centres, or are their own anchors – like city halls, hospitals and universities. 

They are the kinds of places well served by transit; they are the expression of the regional plan that has served us well since the 1950s.  Dispersion of jobs into the region is part of that plan.

And it is, again, why the referendum is not just about transit or TransLink but about how we shape growth, how we serve and create jobs, and how we maintain a healthy region, in every respect.

One other thing: if you want to read a scathing indictment of the loss of the long-form questionnaire to the census, the authors provide one at the end of the report.