Economic Development Committee provides semi-annual report to council

 

During the Monday, November 26 regular meeting of council the Economic Development Committee presented its quarterly report which included updates on current projects, provincial and municipal statistics and initiatives that are planned for the next quarter. Economic Development Officer Rhonda Hough was joined by Economic Development Committee Chair Williard Strebchuk.

One area the committee focused a lot of attention on in the last quarter was business retention strategies. These strategies included the Business Visitation Program which allows businesses and Economic Development staff to meet up and discuss important issues such as business information and available resources, plans, challenges, and business operations. Seventy-two visits have taken place with developers, the forestry sector, insurance brokers, the oil and gas sector, and the downtown business group in the last six months. The aim of the initiative is to build relationships and provide resources to area businesses. The two other initiatives for business retention are the Business Support Network and the Business Database.

“This database program actually gives us the ability to enter all our business visits in each business that we visit year after year, so we can start bringing comparisons and reports from, say, five years of business visits. If a business comes into the Planning & Development Department and has anything to share such as concerns, then we can enter that into our software, too, so that when we do go in there to research things or if we punch up a business then we can see quite a bit of a background,” explained Hough.

The pair talked about a few Business Investment & Attraction Strategies that will be coming up in the new year including the 2019 ICSC Whistler Conference which addresses the interests of retail real estate professionals, municipalities, developers, and disciplines within the retail industry. The show gives opportunities to build network contracts and learn more about retail development trends. Another upcoming event is the Global Petroleum Show in June where Whitecourt’s strengths, aspirations, and competitive advantage will be on display.

One interesting tidbit provided in the presentation concerned the recent Whitecourt Career and Education Expo that took place on September 28 at the AJMC. “We had a great expo. We had 52 exhibitors and had to put in eight or so booths at the last minute, so we had between 60 and 62 in total. We had 2,000 people in attendance between schools and general public.” This year they had general public surveys for attendees to fill out to see if they were unemployed or if they were looking for a career change and where they were from. “Exhibitors collected 150 resumes that day and 96 per cent of our exhibitors are interested in returning,” continued Hough. Of the visitors, 691 were local while the rest came from nearby communities including Fox Creek, Spruce Grove, Valleyview, and Blue Ridge.

Numbers provided to council showed that in 2016 there were 903 businesses in Whitecourt and that 2017 saw a 5.65 per cent drop from that with 852 total businesses. Numbers for 2018 will be provided at a future report session. Business areas that saw drops from 2016 to 2017 were construction which went down by 7.19 per cent, agriculture/forestry/fishing/hunting dropped by 11.3 per cent while transportation/warehousing and real estate/rental/leasing went down by around 13 per cent. There were some shining stars on the list that showed improvements between the two years including arts/entertainment/recreation which went up by 20 per cent, healthcare/social assistance which went up by 11.5 per cent and administrative/support/waste management/remediation services which increased by 5.41 per cent.

The Economic Development team looks to the future with excitement as many different projects and initiatives are in the works through the various committees and sub-committees. “There are a lot of great things. One is that we are working with Norquest right now on some different training opportunities. We are looking at partnering on Class 1 driver training in the community which we will have more information on in the next report. It’s just kind of in the works right now,” said Hough.

She said conversations with the Ad-Hoc Committee have led to ideas around the economy and looking at the affect it has on businesses. “We really need to have an in-depth look at the economy and how occupations will change in the future. We are looking into how technology is changing and what businesses would be training their employees for. We are also looking into how to provide that analysis on the training needs to local businesses and to our youth. It’s a big project.”