Good evening. My name is Sean Elbe, and I'm the sector development manager supporting the technology sectors on behalf of the Vancouver Economic Commission.
We're the economic development agency for the City of Vancouver, and our mandate is to position Vancouver as a global destination for innovative, creative, and sustainable business.
Our focus is on the wealth-generating, high-growth, low-carbon knowledge-based economy. Many of the folks in the room here today aren't familiar with the fact that Vancouver has the highest rate of economic growth of any major Canadian city. According to the Conference Board of Canada, that will continue from now until 2019.
Vancouver has also achieved the lowest unemployment rate in Canada. This points to labour shortages across the greater economy, but acute labour shortages in the sectors that are leading our economic success, and the ones that we work with most closely, which are the technology sector, the digital entertainment sector, and also companies that operate in the green economy.
I'm certain you've heard from your business constituents about the things that we hear day in and day out, that they're facing challenges finding the right talent to fill the types of positions that they have available. In Vancouver there are 2,000 technology positions available today, and there's a forecast of a labour shortage of 15,500 positions in the technology sectors over the next five years.
Why are we seeing this growth? Well, Vancouver, as many of you know, has a track record for being a liveable city, which is an attractive characteristic for top talent. We have some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world. We have a significant amount of investment from all three levels of government in our innovative sectors, and we sit in this amazing corridor from San Diego right up to Vancouver that represents the wealthiest, greenest, and most innovative corridors in the entire world. This is what's drawing talent to Vancouver.
Major global technology companies, digital entertainment companies, and clean technology companies are all setting up offices and investing in our city. Another thing that's really exciting is that we have this globally recognized start-up ecosystem. Vancouver is ranked as a top start-up hub, and we just learned recently that Vancouver is the top city in Canada for head-office growth.
With these growing head offices there's increased demand for executive leadership, senior talent, and the global expertise that in many cases we simply don't have in Vancouver.
These industries aren't thinking inside our borders. They're transforming our local communities and reshaping our cities. We have 5.5 million square feet of new commercial office space coming online in Vancouver, and two-thirds of that is being taken up by our technology and digital sectors.
To support these efforts, we've reached out across B.C. and we've reached out across Canada to try to support our companies in filling these roles. These efforts have been recognized by the provincial government which has asked the Vancouver Economic Commission to support their efforts in articulating a technology talent strategy.
It's through these lenses that we recognize the serious and immediate labour shortages in Vancouver, and we are very thankful that you've invited us here to be your partners on the ground in Vancouver to address these issues.