Thanks Thomas,
Mind you we are only 4 months in from 2016. I don't have problem buying today, the one I am concern is vacancy. Calgary is a oil town. What other industries that support economy?
Calgary - Wikipedia
Calgary is recognized as a Canadian leader in the oil and gas industry as well as for being a leader in economic expansion.
[91] Its high personal and family incomes,
[13][92] low unemployment and high GDP per capita
[93] have all benefited from increased sales and prices due to a resource boom,
[91] and increasing economic diversification.
Calgary benefits from a relatively strong
job market in Alberta, is part of the
Calgary–Edmonton Corridor, one of the fastest growing regions in the country. It is the head office for many major oil and gas related companies, and many financial service business have grown up around them. Small business and self-employment levels also rank amongst the highest in Canada.
[92] It is also a distribution and transportation hub
[94] with high retail sales.
[92]
Calgary's economy is decreasingly dominated by the oil and gas industry, although it is still the single largest contributor to the city's GDP. In 2006, Calgary's real GDP (in constant 1997 dollars) was
C$52.386 billion, of which oil, gas and mining contributed 12%.
[95] The larger oil and gas companies are
BP Canada,
Canadian Natural Resources Limited,
Cenovus Energy,
Encana,
Imperial Oil,
Suncor Energy,
Shell Canada,
Husky Energy,
TransCanada, and
Nexen, making the city home to 87% of Canada's oil and natural gas producers and 66% of coal producers.
[96]
Labour force (2016)[97]
Rate Calgary Alberta Canada
Employment 66.9% 66.3% 61.2%
Unemployment 10.3% 9.0% 6.8%
Participation 74.6% 72.9% 65.6%
As of November 2016, the city had a labour force of 901,700 (a 74.6% participation rate) and 10.3% unemployment rate.
[98][99][100] In 2006, the unemployment rate was amongst the lowest of the major cities in Canada at 3.2%,
[101] causing a shortage of both skilled and unskilled workers.
[102]
Employment by industry[103]
Industry Calgary Alberta
Agriculture 6.1% 10.9%
Manufacturing 15.8% 15.8%
Trade 15.9% 15.8%
Finance 6.4% 5.0%
Health and education 25.1% 18.8%
Business services 25.1% 18.8%
Other services 16.5% 18.7%
In 2010 the "Professional, Technical and Management" Industry accounted for over 14% of employment and the areas of "Architectural, Engineering and Design Services" and "Management, Scientific and Technical Services" employment levels far exceed Canadian levels. Though Trade employs 14.7% of the work force, its percentage of total employment is not higher than the Canadian average. Levels of employment in Construction are both fairly high, exceed Canadian averages, and have grown 16% between 2006 and 2010. Health and Welfare services, which account for 10% of employment, have grown 20% in that period.
[91][104]
In 2006, the top three private sector employers in Calgary were
Shaw Communications (7,500 employees),
Nova Chemicals (4,945) and
Telus (4,517).
[105] Companies rounding out the top ten were
Mark's Work Wearhouse, the
Calgary Co-op, Nexen, Canadian Pacific Railway, CNRL, Shell Canada and
Dow Chemical Canada.
[105] The top public sector employers in 2006 were the Calgary Zone of the Alberta Health Services (22,000), the City of Calgary (12,296) and the Calgary Board of Education (8,000).
[105]Public sector employers rounding out the top five were the University of Calgary and the Calgary Roman Catholic Separate School Division.
[105]
In Canada, Calgary has the second-highest concentration of head offices in Canada (behind Toronto), the most head offices per capita, and the highest head office revenue per capita.
[13][92] Some large employers with Calgary head offices include
Canada Safeway Limited,
Westfair Foods Ltd., Suncor Energy,
Agrium, Flint Energy Services Ltd., Shaw Communication, and Canadian Pacific Railway.
[106] CPR moved its head office from Montreal in 1996 and Imperial Oil moved from Toronto in 2005. EnCana's new 58-floor corporate headquarters,
the Bow, became the tallest building in Canada outside of Toronto.
[107] In 2001, the city became the corporate headquarters of the
TSX Venture Exchange.
WestJet is headquartered close to the Calgary International Airport,
[108] and
Enerjet has its headquarters on the airport grounds.
[109] Prior to their dissolution,
Canadian Airlines[110] and
Air Canada's subsidiary
Zip were also headquartered near the city's airport.
[111] Although the main office is now based in
Yellowknife,
Canadian North, purchased from Canadian Airlines in September 1998, still maintain the operations and charter offices in Calgary.
[112][113]
According to a report by Alexi Olcheski of Avison Young published in August 2015, vacancy rates rose to 11.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2015 from 8.3 per cent in 2014. Oil and gas company office spaces in downtown Calgary are subleasing 40 per cent of their overall vacancies.
[114] H&R Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns the 58-storey 158,000-square-metre highrise the
Bow Tower claims the building was fully leased. Tenants such as
Suncor "have been letting staff and contractors go in response to the downturn."
[114]
