Hamilton's economy?

[mattgrande]

IN8's Firsten calls himself a "trailblazer" who "wants to get in at the beginning" of Hamilton's ascent.

You're about ten years too late, buddy.

[Markus83]

A rather hubris statement that puts me right off for some reason.

[RaginRonic]

I dunno if anyone here has noticed, but the Cardinal Variety store that's up at Upper Wellington and Hester is apparently now closed.

I was in a car this morning, and saw some dumpsters outside the store clearing it out.

Does anyone have info on this? o.o

[realcity]

Quebec steel company building $50M plant in Hamilton’s Red Hill Business Park
Announcement builds on a busy couple of weeks with over $900 million pledged in projects

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9...=&utm_content=

[realcity]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

You're about ten years too late, buddy.

not just late but a first phase won't be built til 2025, maybe just breaking ground by then. Hope LRT keeps up this momentum up through the next recession

[HamiltonBoyInToronto]

Originally Posted by realcity

not just late but a first phase won't be built til 2025, maybe just breaking ground by then. Hope LRT keeps up this momentum up through the next recession

I don't think there will be a problem in Hamilton ...if anything it will be a great alternative to all the other overpriced areas during a recession

[drpgq]

Ackroo moves HQ to Hamilton amid tight Ottawa talent market
https://obj.ca/article/ackroo-moves-...-talent-market

One of Ottawa’s publicly traded companies has shifted its headquarters from the capital after it struggled to find the talent it needed to grow locally.

Ackroo (TSX-V:AKR), which develops customer loyalty solutions for brands such as Husky Energy and Landmark Cinemas, now calls Hamilton home after an official move at the end of 2019. CEO Steve Levely confirmed the move in an email to OBJ Monday.

The company has largely consolidated its Ottawa and Montreal offices in its new Hamilton HQ, Levely said.

Four employees work for Ackroo now in Ottawa – compared with 20 at its apex – with plans to formally close the local office at the end of January. Ackroo employs 25 people in Hamilton as the company gradually relocated and replaced employees with Steeltown talent over the past few years. Levely added there is “lots more hiring ahead of us.”

Finding the necessary talent it needed to grow was the company’s primary issue in Ottawa, Levely wrote in his email.

Polls suggest most Ottawa business leaders agree with Levely’s assessment. Seventy per cent of respondents to the 2019 Ottawa Business Growth Survey said attracting and retaining skilled workers is one of the top five issues facing their companies.

Sweetening the deal, Ackroo also received a $500,000 loan from the Southern Ontario Fund for Investment in Innovation (SOFII) to make the move, Levely said.

“Lots of reasons for the change and although I personally love Ottawa and my time there this was best for all,” he wrote.

The past few years have seen Ackroo grow both organically and through a series of acquisitions. The company hit $5.2 million in annual revenues in 2019, up 18 per cent year-over-year.

[drpgq]

Nice to see stuff like this finally happening. Hamilton has a lot of underpaid talent relative to Toronto, and office rents are way cheaper than the GTA.

[mattgrande]

Looks like Ackroo's office is on South Service Road, near Fifty Point.

Part of me is bummed that they're so far from the city proper, but on the other hand, we need employment across the entire city, so it's kinda nice.

[ZTrade]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

Looks like Ackroo's office is on South Service Road, near Fifty Point.

Part of me is bummed that they're so far from the city proper, but on the other hand, we need employment across the entire city, so it's kinda nice.

Crazy to me that there is no adequate bus service out to Winona yet. Just a joke of a trans-cab service. Yet this is a major employment area in Hamilton that should be connected to the rest of the city. That one commercial building alone already has 5+ tenants with well paying jobs, add in all of the commercial buildings in the vicinity and it's probably hundreds or a thousand+. Then factor in the Winona cross roads shopping center too, it's ridiculous the city says service out there is still "miles away" and not providing a timeline.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by ZTrade

Crazy to me that there is no adequate bus service out to Winona yet. Just a joke of a trans-cab service. Yet this is a major employment area in Hamilton that should be connected to the rest of the city. That one commercial building alone already has 5+ tenants with well paying jobs, add in all of the commercial buildings in the vicinity and it's probably hundreds or a thousand+. Then factor in the Winona cross roads shopping center too, it's ridiculous the city says service out there is still "miles away" and not providing a timeline.

Can probably thank area rating for that. Too expensive for the former suburb to support and the central urban area to subsidize...

That should -- and I think will -- change. Whatever happens with that billion dollar Ford/Mulroney carrot I think some of it will be spread around and provide more balance in the geography of the pork barrel.

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Can probably thank area rating for that.

CBC Hamilton, Feb 28 2019:

The city could use a rural/urban split to pay for transit. That means everyone living in an urban area pays the same level of taxes for transit. Rural homeowners will be exempt.

That's one of the options the new subcommittee — comprised of three urban councillors and three suburban — will study and report back later this year....

This is the closest in recent memory that the city has come to upending a system opponents say results in a subpar HSR.

With area rating, said Mayor Fred Eisenberger, suburban councillors have incentive to fight more transit in their area, since it would increase taxes.

Hamilton is growing fastest in its outer areas, he said, and those areas need transit.

"We have to sort out area rating, or else we're going to continue on this kind of lagging approach of not providing the service that's demanded out there." ...

With a rural/urban split, taxes in wards 1 through 8 would decrease 2.2 per cent. In Ward 5, they'd decrease by one per cent on average, although some areas would increase. In Ward 14, they'd decrease 1.7 per cent on average.

Other wards would see tax increases, which are as follows:

Ward 9: 3.2%
Ward 10: 3.5%
Ward 11: 2.4%
Ward 12: 3.5%
Ward 13: 3.6%
Ward 15: 3.2%

.... Eisenberger said any increases could be phased in over time.

Merulla wanted to look at tax savings in wards 1 through 8 going into a reserve to help transit in the suburban areas. City staff said the province may not allow this, seeing it as unfair to people in the old city.

[thistleclub]

The Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, a collaborative effort between Statistics Canada and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, was released Wednesday and highlights some of the challenges facing the economy amid the COVID-19 shutdown.

From April 3-24, 2020, representatives from 12.6K+ businesses visited StatCan's website and took part in the online questionnaire about how COVID-19 is affecting their business.

Select findings:

How much of a cash buffer did businesses have going into COVID-19
• 42.2% couldn’t operate longer than 60 days without a source of revenue
• 51.1% couldn’t operate longer than 90 days without a source of revenue

Extent to which businesses have experienced a decrease in demand
• 80.9% have experienced a medium to high drop in demand for services or products

Change in business revenue in Q1 2020 compared to Q1 2019
• 10.5% experienced an increase in revenue
• 14.3% saw no change in revenue
• 17.9% experienced a decrease in revenue of up to 20%
• 53.5% experienced a decrease in revenue of over 20%

Staffing decisions taken as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic
• 38.1% have reduced staff hours or shifts
• 40.5% have laid off staff

Length of time businesses can remain partially or fully open amid social distancing measures
• 17.5% say no amount of time amid social distancing
• 22.2% say they could open for no longer than 3 months amid social distancing
• 11.9% say they could open between 3 and 6 months amid social distancing
• Only 32.1% say they could remain open longer than 6 months amid social distancing

[thistleclub]

With 51 days elapsed under the province's state of emergency to date and another 13 stretching out before us, we'll get our first hard look at the economic shadow of COVID-19 tomorrow when StatsCan releases its April Labour Force Survey. (March's report was anchored in the period of March 15-21, which straddled the closure of non-essential businesses). Concern about the report's impact has presumably been a key driving force behind the past week's announcements around reopening, as a ray of hope to the public and a preemptive calmative for stock markets.

[thistleclub]

StatsCan April 2020 Labour Force Survey:

Following a drop of over one million in March, employment fell by nearly two million in April, bringing the total employment decline since the beginning of the COVID-19 economic shutdown to over three million.

In addition, the number of people who were employed but worked less than half of their usual hours for reasons related to COVID-19 increased by 2.5 million from February to April. As of the week of April 12, the cumulative effect of the COVID-19 economic shutdown—the number of Canadians who were either not employed or working substantially reduced hours—was 5.5 million, or more than one-quarter of February's employment level.

In April, both full-time (-1,472,000; -9.7%) and part-time (-522,000; -17.1%) employment fell. Cumulative losses since February totalled 1,946,000 (-12.5%) in full-time work and 1,059,000 (-29.6%) in part-time employment.

The magnitude of the decline in employment since February (-15.7%) far exceeds declines observed in previous labour market downturns. For example, the 1981-1982 recession resulted in a total employment decline of 612,000 (-5.4%) over approximately 17 months.

Hamilton CMA's unemployment rate for April 2020 stood at 7.5%, up from 4.0% a year earlier.

[Innsertnamehere]

Honestly not as bad as I expected. Hamilton especially seems to be doing relatively ok.

I’ve noticed this driving too, Hamilton’s traffic levels are not down nearly as much as Toronto’s. Likely partly because Hamilton is more industrial which means less people can work from home, but still. The Gardiner, normally completely choked with traffic any time of day, is half empty in the middle of rush hour. Meanwhile the Linc is essentially just as busy as normal mid day.

[thistleclub]

Between the March report and the April report, Hamilton CMA labour force shrank by 9K, while Toronto CMA shrank by around 130K.

One of the big sectors to get hit has been accommodation and food services, where nationwide employment dropped by more than a third in April vs March, and almost 50% year over year.

An obvious caveat is that this report is essentially a measure of the first month of a global public health challenge that could last 12-24 months.

Once CEWS' 75% wage subsidy runs out on June 6, the picture may look somewhat different.

[SteelTown]

I'm not surprised the job loss wasn't too bad. Most of Hamilton's biggest employers was still operational, Dofasco, Stelco, Hamilton Health Sciences, City of Hamilton, and even McMaster University (the latter both largely worked from home).

But of course our local small businesses took the brunt of this economic downturn.

Once things get back to semi-normal we're gonna have to help our local businesses as much as possible.

The City should dedicate a day or a weekend for our local businesses and promote the hell out of it. Each weekend close one of the BIA streets to promote social distancing well promoting the local businesses.

[StEC]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Once things get back to semi-normal we're gonna have to help our local businesses as much as possible.

The City should dedicate a day or a weekend for our local businesses and promote the hell out of it. Each weekend close one of the BIA streets to promote social distancing well promoting the local businesses.

I LOVE that idea!!!

[Dr Awesomesauce]

The City should be bending over backwards to ensure restaurants and cafes have ample space on the sidewalk and street for their customers. Shut down lanes if they have to...