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More (Or Less) Office Workers in Toronto's Core?

JasonParis

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I've found myself in a bit of an online argument with somebody who claims that Toronto's core is shrinking in terms of office workers, that more companies than ever are moving to the 905 and that the current building boom in office construction is merely moving the same people around to new towers. As ridiculous as his argument sounds, I'm having a hard time finding any definitive study that compares the number of people working in Toronto's core today, compared to, let's say 10 years ago.

Can anybody lead me in the right direction?

For the record, I've emailed my Councillor too.
 
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From the City of Toronto 2010 Employment Survey, p. 6:

In 2010, there were approximately 511,300 jobs in Toronto’s Downtown and Centres (see Figure 10) or 39.4% of all jobs. After the decline in employment in 2009, the Downtown and Centres employment has rebounded by 16,600 jobs or 3.4% in 2010 (see Table 3).
Employment in Downtown and the Centres in 2010 is now 11.9% greater than it was five years ago, an increase of 54,200 jobs. Downtown accounts for most of this growth at 84.6%. North York Centre grew by 9,700 jobs since 2005, however, Etobicoke Centre lost 1,400 jobs or 13.2% during the same period (see Figure 11 & 12).

http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/pdf/survey2010.pdf

Caveat: employment figures isn't necessarily for office workers only.
 
Downtown is the largest employment cluster in the GTA, where 432,800 jobs make up over one-third of the all jobs found in the City. After experiencing a decline in 2009, Downtown employment increased by 12,300 jobs or 2.9% in 2010.

you can compare this to older data...

http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/pdf/survey2004.pdf

In 2000 downtown and the centres had employment of 486k
 
I've found myself in a bit of an online argument with somebody who claims that Toronto's core is shrinking in terms of office workers, that more companies than ever are moving to the 905 and that the current building boom in office construction is merely moving the same people around to new towers. As ridiculous as his argument sounds, I'm having a hard time finding any definitive study that compares the number of people working in Toronto's core today, compared to, let's say 10 years ago.

Can anybody lead me in the right direction?

For the record, I've emailed my Councillor too.

There is, of course, the distinct possiblity that this is one of these arguments were there is elements of "right" on both sides. There is movement/shuffling of tenants from old buildings to new (eg. almost all of the tenants of Bay/Adelaide are companies that were located in older buildings that moved to the new space.....that said, it is hard to believe that there has not been growth in downtown office segment as that would have shown up in, likely, double digit, vacancy rates by now (ie. we have more space, if we did not have more tenants/workers the vacancy rate would be significantly higher (even the less publicised "availibilty rate" has not moved significantly higher....that also said, your online opponent is probably right in his/her statement that "more companies than ever are moving to the 905" that is also shown by the growth of (and relatively low vacancy rates in) suburban office developments.....but "more companies than ever" is not a synonym for "all companies".

So, without detailed study, I would bet the answer is that overall the Toronto Office Market has seen a significant growth in workers and that even though more than ever they are working in the 905 there is still a significant enough growth factor in the downtown core to absorb the new space there.

I don't think landlords are unconcerned, however, about the new supply. One of the biggest trends you see downtown is the amount of money being pumped into existing office buildings in the core. Food/retail courts, entrance ways, lobbies, facades, etc are all being upgraded at (significant) cost.....no landlord wants to be the one left without a chair when any of their tenants play musical chairs at a party hosted by leasing agents for any of the new buildings.
 
To separate out the Centres from Downtown - these are the individual figures from both reports for Downtown:

2001 - 400,556
2002 - 397,883
2003 - 388,855
2004 - 380,237
2005 - 385,940
2005 - 387,200
2006 - 395,200
2007 - 415,200
2008 - 424,900
2009 - 420,500
2010 - 432,800

AoD
 
I'm sort of addicted. It's fun watching heads explode as I wage a war of facts. Maybe, just maybe, I'll even turn a few heads.

Let's hope. Keep fighting the good fight. Like you, I'm not a huge fan of Transit City, but these people could make me one!

Though, after reading that it's clear that some of those people are a little unhinged. Yikes!
 
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I know you asked about the core but if you take a look at the rest of the 416 (less Yonge street) there has been a gradual steady decline for the past 10+ years or so now (maybe longer).
Just about all these jobs relocate out of the 416, not to the 905. So when you look at Toronto's overall job numbers, they're very stagnant for this reason i.e. while the core has been gaining a lot of jobs, the rest of the 416 detracts.
 
Looks like Jason got banned from that group. All of his posts have been purged.

They don't need "facts", I guess. They have "common sense".
 
Yup, I was banned and all posts deleted.

Apparently a Toronto Councillor can be libeled in this group and the person not be banned, but one speaking facts politely can be. Anyway, an interesting few days, but I'm ever-more convinced many Ford supporters live in an impermeable bubble and have no interest in anything factual. It's all hearsay and hysteria.

The Group's Admin can be reached at https://twitter.com/#!/neilflagg or https://www.facebook.com/neilf72.
 
Between 2000 and 2006, slightly over 14 million s.f. of office space was been developed across the GTA with the overwhelming majority (90%) taking place in suburbs. Mississauga itself, while being less than half the size of Toronto, had five times the amount as all of Toronto.

It is likley that in 1988 there were more people working in the core. In particular, full time private employment. Furthermore the ratio of jobs to residents was much higher in the late 80's. The growth in residents has outstripped job growth.

Nothing to celebrate
 

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