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One in four global workers have stable jobs

Just one quarter of the world’s workers have stable jobs according to a recent report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), “World Employment and Social Outlook: The Changing Nature of Jobs”. This leaves three quarters of the workforce in countries with available data (covering 84 percent of the world’s workforce) in precarious temporary, short-term or informal employment. This shift to “non-standard forms of employment” is associated with increased inequality and higher poverty rates in many cases.

Along with these concerning findings around precarious employment, the report found that global employment growth has stalled at about 1.4 percent per year since 2011, and that the global jobs gap corresponds to an estimated US$ 1.218 trillion in lost wages around the world. Closing the global jobs gap would grow global GDP by an estimated $3.7 trillion. Check out the full report or summary for more on its findings, up-to-date labour market and social indicators at the regional and global levels, and analysis of the relationship between macroeconomic policies and employment and balanced incomes.

Lessons from America’s leading metros

Area Development magazine recently released the fifth edition of its Leading Locations study on which U.S. cities are creating jobs and nurturing sustainable economic development. Cities in the west emerged as leaders, with MSAs in Colorado, California, Texas, and Washington accounting for eight of the top 10. Denver-Aurora-Broomfield ranked first overall, with its diverse range of advanced manufacturing and technology-based industries supporting recent and continuing economic sustainability and job growth. Other traditional economic leaders, such as Houston and San Jose, landed at the top of the list, with smaller areas like Boulder, CO, and Columbus, IN, emerging as well.

All of these communities offer leading practices to follow, but smaller communities like Boulder and Columbus may offer more interesting insights, packing “a powerful economic punch” (perhaps above their weight class). Boulder, for example, has leveraged research institutes and skilled graduates at the University of Colorado-Boulder to become a centre of scientific leadership and innovation – and home to innovative businesses like Google, IBM, and Lockheed Martin. The city has also garnered national recognition as the smartest and “foodiest” town in America based on its success. Columbus offers a leading practice in supporting and growing a manufacturing-based economy, having developed strong structures like the Advanced Manufacturing Centre of Excellence that coordinate academia and industry in areas like materials, mechanical engineering/mechatronics, and robotics research and development.

There is a wealth of information to gain from mining the overall and sub-area (e.g. “recession busting” cities) rankings of the study, particularly in identifying best practices to emulate in your own economic development work. The full ranking is available in an interactive table for further study.

What makes a neighbourhood creative or innovative?

What makes a neighbourhood creative or innovative? A recent report by Gregory M. Spencer, “Knowledge Neighbourhoods: Urban Form and Evolutionary Economic Geography”, explores these drivers of economic development by examining neighbourhoods that attract high-tech and cultural businesses. In this case, high-tech businesses are defined as those in software, pharmaceuticals and medicine, and research and development. Creative businesses include music, radio and television, film, design, and independent artists, writers and performers. The study focuses on three large urban areas in Canada: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

According to the report, high-tech or science-based industries gravitate towards lower-density suburban industrial or commercial areas along highway interchanges, while creative industries tend to be found in walkable, mixed-use urban areas. These findings suggest that it is more difficult to intentionally build neighbourhoods that are attractive to creative businesses as these areas tend to develop organically over time. In each case, these neighbourhoods have anchors: other large high-tech companies and research universities for high-tech or science-based industries, and galleries, performance venues, and universities or specialized arts, music or design institutions for creative industries. Differences between these types of industries can also be seen in the density of amenities available in their preferred locations and in the commuting patterns of workers. Spencer suggests these findings are the result of inherent differences between these two industries, including the typical size of businesses and how they relate to one another.

While some of the report’s findings may seem intuitive to economic developers on the ground, its findings offer some interesting answers to questions about where these two types of businesses choose to locate and how to attract them.

Understanding the anatomy of business incubation

Business incubators play an important role in the economy by driving innovation and providing entrepreneurs and start-ups with the assistance they need to launch their startups. In a recent blog post on the anatomy of business incubation in Canada, Tara Vinodrai looks at current data and research on incubators, which found a substantial growth in the number of business incubators operating across the country since 2000. These incubators weren't confined to any specific sector, but spanned a broad spectrum of industries.

For those thinking about the potential of incubators in their communities, it may be worth looking at some interesting examples of unique business incubators have emerged in recent years. Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, for instance, is a combination of an art gallery and a business incubation space that fosters unique types of collaboration and creative solutions to business problems. An alternative approach can also be seen in Make in LA, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs bring new hardware to market through mentorship and by providing access to manufacturing tools for start-up programs. This has reduced the cost of entry many businesses face by avoiding expensive upfront development costs. Food incubators are another example. The Toronto Food Business Incubator gives start-ups the opportunity to commercialize and scale the development of food products by providing access to provincially inspected food production facilities and packaging equipment.

Incubators play an important role in reducing the barriers for entrepreneurs and providing a support system that enables the growth of their business and the local economy. While there are still many local factors to consider for communities thinking about creating an incubator, there's also much that can be learned from incubators of all shapes and sizes.