BCBusiness Magazine annually ranks the best cities for work in the province and this year, it's placed Prince George near the bottom of the list.
Out of 46 cities, BCBusiness ranked Prince George 44th for the 2020 rankings, falling 18 spots from 26th on 2019's list.
B.C.’s northern capital was sandwiched in between Quesnel at 43, and Port Alberni at 45. Williams Lake came in last place in the 46 falling from its 2019 spot at 33.
The magazine says the entire Cariboo region took a massive fall in rankings this year.
“Unsurprisingly, perhaps, in the Cariboo, where 22 per cent of the workforce has ties to forestry, the economy has begun showing signs of distress," explains the mag. "The region’s largest communities—Prince George, Quesnel and Williams Lake—fell 50 collective spots to rank among the lowest on this year’s list."
“The challenge and opportunity for these centres may be to reinvent themselves at a time when they can take advantage of the disparity between their affordable housing costs and those of larger provincial centres.”
One city in northern B.C. doing quite well, according to these rankings, is Fort. St. John which came in sixth.
“After last year’s fall from multi-year stints in the top three, the northeastern communities of Fort St. John and Dawson Creek have regained some ground, with Fort St. John just shy of cracking the top five this year and Dawson Creek recovering three spots to reach No. 27,” explains BCBusiness.
Prince Rupert also made the top 10, coming in at number nine.
The publication says it uses 10 indicators gathered with help from Environics Analytics to evaluate the cities.
“To determine the Best Cities for Work in B.C., we examined 10 economic indicators with weightings ranging from five to 15 per cent. Unchanged from last year, these include so-called lagging economic indicators, such as income growth, as well as more forward-looking, or leading, indicators like housing starts. Each city received a score out of a total of 100 points and is ranked accordingly.”
For the second year in a row, the number one ranked city was Squamish and followed by Whistler and the Township of Langley.
The magazine says that despite the high cost of living these three cities have remained economically resilient.
Take a look at BCBusiness' full rankings:
(via BCBusiness)
(via BCBusiness)
(via BCBusiness)
