With new offices opening in the city, a great shift in the economy is predicted
By Tania Arora, Staff Writer
The past year saw companies coming up with plans to open offices at new locations or relocate their headquarters to Vancouver. Few recently signed the deals while others are ready to inaugurate the offices. In any case, with companies planning such moves, the economy can be expected to face a great shift upwards.
This is great news for many students at Douglas, namely in the tech field. Carlos Arturo Machado Ramos, a student at Douglas College, attests to that fact in an interview with the Other Press.
“British Columbia, in particular Vancouver, has experienced a dynamic growth in the IT sector recently,” he said. “There are new companies in the field that have started looking at this region as a potential ‘gold mine’ for the IT sector. Worldwide known companies such as Amazon recently announced a new launch of a big corporate in Vancouver, which means technological, as well as physical infrastructure development for the community and an important employment growth directly positively affecting the local economy. It would also help to strengthen the international ties and connections of people involved in these sort of projects, something that would take Vancouver to an avant-garde position globally.”
Canada’s financial hub won’t be just Toronto by the end of next decade. Following are the companies who are expanding, setting up new offices, or relocating to Vancouver.
lululemon
The iconic Vancouver-based multinational clothing retailer got its new headquarters building approved by the city council at the beginning of February. Construction will begin in September 2020 and will use up a total floor area of 593,400 square feet. The new building will be able to accommodate 2,000 employees initially and more as they grow.
Amazon
Last year, Amazon chose Vancouver to open its new headquarters over New York—a decision that some consider lucky for our small city. Although there is no specific opening date, the company’s building, situated at 402 Dunsmuir Street, will open doors to more than 1,000 workers in the downtown area.
Shopify
The e-commerce platform announced its plan to open a new permanent office in Vancouver and create a great pool of jobs. The company announced its plans to hire about 1,000 new employees. The space will open by the end of the year and will be located at Four Bentall Centre (1055 Dunsmuir Street).
Brex
The talent pool of Vancouver convinced the US-based financial technology company open its first new international office in the city—at 1100 Melville street. The company is involved in creating corporate credit cards, travel programs, and rewards for clients.
Zenoti
Seems like Vancouver is set to soon become a technology hub. The cloud-based tech firm Zenoti—which is also located in Manchester, Brisbane, Dubai, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila—inaugurated its new office in 2020.
Companies opening new offices in Vancouver likely means more job openings, a raise in income, a raise
in standard of living, and an increase in GDP. The companies based outside the
city may also be attracted towards Vancouver thereby increasing the
possibilities of trade deals. Even though most of the corporations are a part
of the tech sector, the job openings are related to all areas (as a company has
multiple divisions and each require a workforce), so gear up. Time to brush up
those skills and resumes.