Stumbled on something during some web spelunking, made me think of
a mid-January story in the Spec which noted that research conducted by Hamilton’s Centre for Community Study revealed that “The city's core is adding jobs and residents — a total of 2,700 since 2001.” A July 2005 CCS white paper, How Hamilton Works
[PDF], noted that “Of the top nine CMAs in Canada, only Hamilton, Winnipeg, and Quebec City saw city centre jobs decline. In Hamilton’s case, this can be explained by a decrease in manufacturing jobs in the city centre, a trend virtually all CMAs experienced 1996 and 2001.” Hamilton lost 2,300 jobs in the core (within 5km of City Hall) between 1996 and 2001; Toronto added 72,700 in the same period. So between 1996 and 2010, Hamilton's core might have experienced a net increase of 400 jobs (and/or residents).