The Vancouver tech market will see massive job gains over the next five years, with the cost of living as one of the only hurdles.
A report from JLL, a commercial real estate firm, says that the Vancouver tech scene will grow by 11.9%, amounting to 84,723 tech jobs by 2028. Another hurdle is that available space for tech companies is shrinking, but there’s still much optimism for the tech scene.
“I think Vancouver has a lot of big strengths,” Jeremy Shaki told Daily Hive.
Shaki is CEO of Lighthouse Labs, a tech education organization based in Vancouver. Regarding strengths, Shaki says Vancouver has a strong pool of tech talent, good business leaders, and the potential to access capital.
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“It has proximity to the US and San Francisco, it has a lot of good.”
Shaki says the challenge is how expensive it is to live.
“To put it bluntly, I think if you’re trying to start a company, a place like San Francisco has all the capital and all the talent.”
He says that in a place like San Francisco, people can deal with the higher prices “Because that’s the most elite place that you can go. Vancouver’s not that. It’s one tier below.”
Shaki says that while Vancouver might be on a lower rung than San Francisco, it still ranks high globally.
“[Vancouver] is a very expensive place to live, and if you’re trying to build a start-up, you don’t have a lot of money to do it. Why would you hire in cities where you know everyone needs higher than average salaries?”
Shaki told Daily Hive that how Canada treats Artificial Intelligence in the coming years will be another major factor in the Vancouver tech scene.
“Canada is one of the latest adopters of technology. I think the government has to think about how it’s going to fuel the use of AI to improve productivity amongst small to medium-sized businesses.”
JLL says that 26% of firms that are searching for office space in Metro Vancouver are technology companies. Microsoft occupies the most space out of all the tech giants in Vancouver. JLL also lists the top tech submarkets, which are the downtown core, Burnaby, the Broadway Corridor, and Richmond.
According to JLL’s report, the total vacancy rate in the downtown core is 13.3%. In January, we learned from CBRE that the office vacancy rate in downtown Vancouver saw some improvement.
CBRE states that the office market will continue to rebound gradually, as no construction starts on new office buildings are expected over the next few years.
With files from Kenneth Chan
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