Improving Vaughan's Competitive Position
A strong economy and a solid business base are the cornerstone of a successful community. The City of Vaughan is working hard to maintain its position as a city of choice when it comes to investment. With more than 9,000 established businesses, Vaughan remains a growth community and is in a very good position despite the recent challenges in our global economy.
With the continued rapid growth that Vaughan is experiencing, it has created new challenges for business and industry, resulting in the City undertaking a new Employment Sectors Strategy (ESS) Study. This Study is part of the mandate that the Economic Development Committee initiated in spring 2009.
The goal of this Study is to examine the current and future employment mix in the City and to determine how we can meet the needs, especially taking into consideration our growing diverse community and encouraging the good quality employment opportunities available. The ESS Study will also form the basis for a revision to the City’s overall Economic Development Strategy.
The ESS Study encompasses a number of stages of which three have been completed and stage four is currently underway. This will include finalizing the ESS for review by the Economic Development committee, releasing it for public comment and finally obtaining approval from Vaughan Council.
Stage one provided an analysis of Vaughan’s role in the broader Greater Golden Horseshoe, Greater Toronto Area and York Region, along with a review of growth trends in Vaughan’s employment sectors and identifying employment growth sectors and opportunity areas.
January 4, 2010 Update |
The second stage of the Study was conducting the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis.
This included focus workshops on five key factors that affect the competitive position of Vaughan – access to market, real estate and development economics, community amenities and resources, labour force and broader economic forces.
Stage three looked at identifying the key target sectors and recommending policy directions. Through this process, a number of growth related sectors were identified for Vaughan:
- Building products
- Advanced manufacturing
- Transportation, logistics, warehousing and distribution
- Environmental and green industries
- Headquarters
- Cultural industries, including tourism
- Professional, scientific and technical services
- Educational services, health care and social assistance.
It also recommended four initiatives which would improve Vaughan’s overall competitiveness by:
- Retaining traditional industrial activities;
- Nurturing the building products cluster, retail trade and educational services;
- Attracting businesses and related services, including health care, food and accommodation; and
- Ensuring the city is able to react to a range of other types of economic development.
The targeted completion of the Employment Sectors Strategy is timed to coincide with the completion of the Official Plan Review in the early part of 2010.