Article content continued

“Talent will almost always trump cost,” CBRE Canada executive managing director Paul Morassutti said in an interview.

Waterloo was the big surprise on the list this year, up three spots from last year due to “explosive” growth in the number of tech jobs, he said. It’s good news for a city rattled by BlackBerry Ltd.’s fall from one of the world’s top companies to a small software player.

“The breakup of BlackBerry, while a little bit ugly when it first happened, ultimately has proven to be a good thing for Waterloo,” Morassutti said. “It unleashed a wave of innovative talent that has gone on to a whole variety of different startup type of businesses.”

Waterloo added 8,400 tech jobs from 2011 to 2016, a 65.6 per cent increase. That’s the second fastest growth rate in North America after Charlotte, NC, according to CBRE.

On a North America scale, however, Toronto and Vancouver topped their Canadian counterparts, Morassutti said. They respectively added 51,300 and 17,500 tech jobs over the same period.

“On a value for cost basis, Toronto and Vancouver are the best markets in North America when you factor in costs and quality of talent,” he said. “I think that’s a pretty impressive testament to the depth of quality and talent that we have in our major markets.”

The report comes out as Amazon.com Inc. weighs options for a second headquarters for 50,000 employees. Every city on CRBE’s list is involved in a bid to woo Amazon’s HQ2, or at least considered one.