Public sector stability vital to region’s economy

The Chamber’s top advocacy priority for at least the last five years has focused on helping employers find and keep workers. It’s a complex problem that affects many layers of our economy. Housing, child care and affordability are key and real progress is being made to find solutions.

However, everyone who cares about our region’s long-term prosperity should be concerned about a proposal that could upend a cornerstone of Greater Victoria’s economy. The province is being pitched a plan that could mean fewer public sector workers downtown, and potentially see jobs shipped out of our region.

“The fact that people living anywhere in B.C. can apply for these jobs means that yes they can stay home and work that would create some prosperity in other places but it doesn’t help the circumstance here when the economy has largely been framed around government workers working downtown in office buildings,” Chamber CEO Bruce Williams told CHEK News.

The Chamber is urging the province to consider the full implications the proposal would have on the stability of BC’s capital city. Speaking to the Times Colonist, Williams said “there is a long-standing synergy” between many family-supporting businesses that have been built to service government workers.
“The public sector is a ­cornerstone of our economy and communities depend on that ­stability,” Williams said in in the article.

The Chamber is listening to our members about how their business could be impacted by this plan, which contrasts with federal government efforts to increase productivity in its workforce by having employees back in office more often.

Share your thoughts with The Chamber at communications@victoriachamber.ca.