With Vancouver property values soaring and reasonably priced rental accommodation scarce, Vancouver employers are being forced to get creative — and to loosen their wallets — to recruit staff.
Companies resistant to sweetening the recruitment pot got a dressing down from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who on April 11 urged them to raise wages, arguing that technology companies in Silicon Valley pay much more than those in Vancouver.
Many firms, after struggling to attract workers with offers of less than $20 per hour, are getting the message, said Miles Employment Group CEO Sandra Miles.
Finding a new CEO or other C-suite executives, in contrast, remains comparatively easy because those workers are more likely to be wowed by Vancouver’s beauty and livability and are paid enough to live comfortably, she said.
A main focus of Miles’ firm is helping office clients hire administrative staff and various levels of management, but she has recently been courted by manufacturers who are unable to find entry-level staff for warehouses.
“It’s hard for them to dial up their rate of pay because it’s buried into their margins,” she said.
“Young families are moving out of Vancouver because once they have a couple of children, they want a bigger place to live and that’s just not doable in Vancouver.”
For decades, Vancouver couples with children have fled the city for suburbs such as Coquitlam in search of bigger homes with backyards.
What’s newer, Miles said, is that high costs are driving families out of Metro Vancouver altogether.
She has acquaintances who have moved to Victoria, Nanaimo and Kelowna to start new lives because of the lower cost of housing in those cities, she said.
In February, Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes sounded a similar alarm when he wrote an open letter to say that housing costs have reached a “crisis point” that have made it “exceptionally hard to grow a business in Vancouver.”
Qualified job candidates are deterred from moving to the city, he said, and “great” employees are leaving because they cannot afford to live in the city.
This has not, however, stopped new retail ventures from launching in the city.
RYU Apparel Inc. (TSX-V:RYU) opened its first store in Kitsilano in November, and it plans to open a second on Thurlow Street near Robson Street this summer.
RYU’s director of retail, Brett Pawson, told Business in Vancouver that his company is “definitely paying a healthy premium to the minimum wage” and has been able to recruit nearly 40 corporate office staff as well as 12 employees at its Kitsilano store – a feat he attributes largely to the company’s “culture.”
That culture includes encouraging employees to lead active lifestyles and organizing “sweat club” workouts, Pawson said.
“Stock options may be a consideration at some point down the road.”
Pawson expects to hire an additional 20 employees by summer to work at the new Thurlow store and in Kitsilano.
On the other end of the employment spectrum, companies are having little trouble finding CEOs and other professional staff. Kit and Ace spokeswoman Andrea Mestrovic said her company has had a “plethora of qualified people” apply for the several top jobs at her company, such as CEO and COO. She expects those jobs to be finalized by June.
Vancouver-based money manager Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. (CCL) has similarly found it easy to recruit wealth managers.
“We’ve found that being in Vancouver is attractive and recruiting is not an issue,” CCL co-founder Larry Lunn told BIV.
“We’ve hired people out of London, England and New York. They come here because the lifestyle is attractive for them.”
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