By Greg Sakaki
Experts say Ottawa’s long-term economic forecast is the best in Canada, which will lead to the creation of thousands of jobs in the next few years.
While many of these positions will be based in Kanata and Nepean, some companies are now choosing to locate in Centretown.
Eftia OSS Solutions is one such corporation. In November, Eftia moved into what was formerly the Revenue Canada building on Lisgar Street.
Farrah Jinah, corporate communications manager at Eftia, says her company has added “well over 100 jobs” since moving into its Centretown offices and has had to take over some space in the building next door.
“For us it was a great location,” says Jinah. “There were lots of amenities in the area that our employees and our staff could take advantage of. It was also centrally located as to where people were coming from to get to work.”
Eftia joins many other advanced technology companies in Ottawa that have created jobs in recent months.
Brian Barge, president of the Ottawa Economic Development Corporation, says his company tracks high-tech businesses. He says there are about 1,000 high-tech companies in the capital region, accounting for 63,000 jobs.
“We have an industry here that is focused on where the world economy is growing,” Barge says. “There’s every reason to believe that Ottawa will continue to grow and prosper because of that whole global information revolution.”
Barge also predicted that in 2000 or 2001, the number of jobs in the advanced technology industry would surpass the number of government jobs in the region.
“The whole economy is transforming itself to one that has balance,” he says.
In a recently released report, TD Economic Prospects for Canada’s Major Cities, economists predicted that Ottawa and Calgary would have the fastest growing work force in the coming decade.
The report indicated that software, fibre-optics and telecommunications companies would continue to lead the way.
Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street Promenade business improvement area, says he thinks Ottawa is experiencing a boom.
“As you can see with the markets, high-tech companies are doing extremely well (and) we have a concentration of those here,” says LePage. “That’s going to fuel our economy a lot better than most other local economies or regional economies in the country.”
LePage, though optimistic about the economy, says it’s not time to start patting ourselves on the back yet. He says that federal government down-sizing eliminated at least 7,000 Centretown positions in the last decade and says the Centretown area is still playing catch-up.
However, LePage says Centretown remains a desirable address for businesses.
“There’s a lot of high-tech concentrated in the downtown core and we expect that to continue,” he says. “We have a lot of tenants now moving into (premium office) space and looking for space.”
Both LePage and Barge pointed to a highly educated work force and a good quality of life as selling points for Ottawa. They also agreed that all sectors of the economy would expand because more high-tech jobs mean a domino effect will create more positions in the service industry.
LePage says there will be spin-off advantages to a strong local economy.
“As a city becomes more popular, it becomes more animated,” he says. “There’s dimensions that are added to its culture, to its vitality and of course we all benefit.”