January 5, 2018

The Gordies 2017-Potentially Most Polarizing Planning Work~Amazon HQ2

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A unanimous pick by the Price Tags editors for the most Potentially Polarizing Planning Work~The Amazon solicitation from cities right across North America for  its first location outside of Seattle. Why? Amazon says it will invest 5 billion dollars (those would be American dollars) in the construction of its second headquarters. Of course over 238 proposals  came from cities putting in a bid to Amazon to become the second headquarters. Amazon has had those bids since the middle of October and plans to make the grand announcement in 2018.
And here is where it is polarizing. Of course Vancouver put in a bid, as reported by Price Tags Vancouver here. But there is a good side and a bad side to this. While 50,000 Amazon staff workers would be located here, they will all need a place to live. And while Amazon will bring in new money and salaries, will those tens of thousands of high paying jobs also raise the salaries of local Vancouverites not working with Amazon? Or will those high paying jobs in Amazon make the Vancouver market more unaffordable?
 
Amazon did have some basic requirements, asking for a city with a one million person population, an international airport  and a place that was “stable and business-friendly”.  Oh of course, one more thing~Amazon also said “Incentives offered by the state/province and local communities to offset initial capital outlay and ongoing operational costs will be significant factors in the decision-making process.”  
Price Tags Vancouver’s Gordie 2017  for most potentially polarizing planning work.

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  1. At the risk of re-arguing a controversy about something I don’t think is going to happen, I find the whole ‘Adding 50,000 new high paying jobs is bad’ argument kind of amazing in an up-is-down way.
    Lots of high paying jobs for people living in a community is a primary goal of government policy. It is about as close to a purely good outcome as you can get. Especially since Vancouver didn’t throw out freebees the way some places are.
    Of course there are follow on effects from adding a bunch more high paying jobs. The new people will need places to live. So we need to either build some more housing, or displace people who make less money than Amazon employees.
    It could also make income inequality worse even if it does result in higher local wages in the tech sector. I think the solution to income inequality is a combination of higher taxes and adding even more good paying jobs. Opposing high paying jobs because not all jobs are high paying is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

    1. Canada has an income inequality problem? Are you referring to an alleged need for even higher minimum wage, or the excessive public sector salaries vs similar private sector jobs with less benefits and far higher layoff risks ? Or that high tech worker ought to make more, or less money ?

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  3. This editorial decision seems ill-timed.
    Canada’s jobless rate and employment growth hit a record low and high respectively, the best performance in 40 years. Canada created 423,000 jobs over the last year, the majority of them full-time with an average wage of $26.68. This was in the context of the tail end of a resource sector slump, now showing some gains. Manufacturing, retail, real estate and construction all saw major gains, but also a lack of skilled workers to fill the demand.
    Put these numbers in the context of today’s kerfuffle about minimum wage hikes and the supposed displacement of tech workers when a tech giant lands. The fact is that Canada already has a shortage of 200,000 programming grads and really needs to boost the immigration of skilled workers.
    https://sec.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canadas-job-market-blows-past-forecasts-jobless-rate-af-40-year-low/article37511429/
    The city with the second lowest unemployment rate in Canada is Victoria at 3.4%. BC’s unemployment rate closed out the year at 4.6%. Again, these are record lows and cap a long stretch of record job growth. There is now a serious job shortage at a time when Boomers are leaving the work force in great numbers.
    https://www.pressreader.com/canada/times-colonist/20180106/281767039613576
    BC has been besting Alberta for three years now mainly due to it more diversified economy. Victoria’s jobless rate is half that of Calgary, which is still reeling with the great migration of oil patch jobs, even with some improving trends.

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