In B.C., 350,000 people were employed by foreign-owned companies in 2022
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Much of that growth was driven by an almost three-fold increase in professional, scientific and technical jobs, which include the biotech, software, gaming and finance industries.
“The common denominator across those industries is a skilled workforce,” said Gregory Freeman, a senior economist at Invest Vancouver.
“There is a competitive advantage to being in these industries here in B.C.,” Freeman said, noting that foreign firms “wouldn’t be expanding their footprint here if there wasn’t.”
“In some cases, it’s literally the skill sets of the workers that they’re hiring,” he said.
Invest Vancouver found that foreign-owned companies employed 350,000 people in B.C. in 2022, contributing $37 billion to the province’s economy in 2021. Of that, $5.8 billion came from the professional, scientific and technical industry, the most of any sector.
It wasn’t only technical jobs driving the increase driving the increased investment, Freeman said. Foreign investment drove employment in the oil and gas, health care, transportation and finance industries, among others.
“There is investment and growth happening across sectors,” he said.
Freeman said there are three ways employment numbers for foreign-owned companies can increase: A company can establish a local subsidiary, it can buy a local company, or it can expand local operations.
U.S. companies create the most jobs in B.C. of any foreign companies. Two-thirds of those jobs – about 65,700 – are relatively low-wage jobs at companies like Walmart and Starbucks, which offer limited contributions to B.C.’s GDP.
“It’s not a shock that you would have American firms expanding into our market in things like retail,” he said, pointing to the ease of access and cultural similarities. “They’re here to sell us stuff.”
U.S.-owned companies employed 42,100 people in professional and high-tech jobs in 2022 – double the number in 2020. Non-U.S. foreign companies employed another 25,800 people in the sector in 2022, more than than any other sector.
Freeman said professional and technical services companies “are more export oriented” than retail companies, meaning they contribute more to B.C.’s economy.
While foreign-owned retail companies employ a larger number of people overall, they contribute comparatively less to GDP, indicating the “labour-intensive and low-productivity nature” of the industry, the report said.
After the U.S., the U.K. and Sweden were the largest sources of foreign company employment in 2022. British-owned companies employed 21,700 people and Swedish-owned companies employed 17,300 people.
The number of jobs connected to Swedish companies jumped nearly 900 per cent from 2016 to 2022, the biggest jump of any country. Freeman cautioned that there was relatively little Swedish foreign investment in B.C. in 2016, but said Invest Vancouver is doing research to better understand the rapid growth.
He had already identified a number of B.C. companies bought by Swedish firms. Vancouver-based Article, a home-furnishings company, was bought by Swedish furniture designer Foiga in 2020, the same year several B.C.-based software and game developers were bought by Swedish firms.
B.C. also has the largest Swedish population in the country, with over 103,000 people in B.C. claiming Swedish ancestry, according to Statistics Canada.
Foreign investment doesn’t just add jobs, Freedman said. It helps to develop new markets, supports local business and increases the provincial tax base.
“There’s a lot of ways it can help,” Freeman said.