[GMasterAres]

My guess is that he is pointing out the notion that we are a resource economy and the "green" industry across the globe tends to be fickle and move around all the time if your city in North America doesn't have the name San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York.

Regardless though I am more on the side that this happens everywhere "satellite" offices are located and the film/animation industry is the most subject to fluctuating US$ vs other currency issues, and tax incentives. At the end of the day they look to make as much money as is possible and it is a non-fixed industry meaning it can be done anywhere unlike natural resources.

You can't outsource your lumber production for example. A mine can't up and say "we're consolidating our mining to California" because the stuff they are mining is in the Earth so they have to stay where the resources are. In the "green" world outside of manufacturing, jobs are transient. Even in my job in technology, I could actually do 95% of my entire job from my home or even from a beach in Mexico (as long as I had Internet and a laptop). Same deal here. The only reason you would be in Vancouver is if it is a) cost effective and b) the talent pool is great. If either of those starts to become a negative, they up and move.

I don't think 1 office though should point that helping "green" business is a huge negative though. I mean while Pixar is closing this 100 person office which isn't huge in the grand scheme of a company with over 2200 employees, Hootsuite is hiring 100 + people. That's the computer industry. And yes I know Pixar != Hootsuite and some of the jobs are non-transferable between their specific industries, but the overall tech industry which Pixar is largely a part of, is all transient and somewhat unstable.

For 3D animation specifically, it's always been that way. One of my friends graduated with a degree in 3D animation and bounced several jobs before giving it up as he didn't want to move to California and this was 8 years ago now. This isn't anything new.

I also have a friend who is a computer programmer and has worked for 12 companies in the last 5 years. That's the nature of the business and I think overall the industry is ok but unstable. It's kind of like being an actor/actress. I thought it funny in an interview with a few big actors about why people move to Los Angeles, they said "We move to Los Angeles because that's where you get hired to star in shows. Then when they hire you they ship you off to Vancouver to start filming, because nothing is filmed in Los Angeles anymore..."

I kind of laughed at that.