#Drennn. Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 The pandemic is making the East Coast seem like an ideal destination for companies looking to relocate or expand. Tim Richardson is the new Halifax operations manager for Jonas Software, a company that globally develops, supports and supplies software for the fitness, construction, food service, club management, and travel/hotel/resort management sectors. With headquarters based in Ontario and teams around North America, when the Jonas team was looking to expand, Halifax became the location of choice. And they did so with a planned launch date of April 2020. After evaluation, Halifax was deemed the best choice for Jonas thanks to the combination of available talent, great technical supply from the colleges and universities in the region, partnership with government agencies to promote setup and establishment of operations, excellent work-life balance as well as a cost-effective workforce. Since then, Richardson says, they have had over 15 new employees relocate from outside the province to join the team. Like much of the world, he says, their initial employees started fully remote. The Jonas Software team functions in a high-tech world that allows them the ability to operate online for most business functions. “Any challenges of being in Halifax have been muted with COVID-19 forcing everyone to work remotely and use online collaboration,” says Richardson. This trend of moving businesses from large urban centres - where office costs are high - into smaller areas like on the East Coast is only increasing. “We have established multinational firms, and an active start-up community that results in a well-connected, global, cluster,” says Laurel Broten, president and chief executive officer of Nova Scotia Business Incorporated (NSBI), a provincial Crown corporation that talks to people around the globe to promote Nova Scotia as an ideal spot to work, operate a business, and become an entrepreneur. Key components of economic growth, according to the Ivany OneNS report, are growing the po[CENSORED]tion, expanding the taxation base and having more people coming to the province to consume goods, go to restaurants and buy houses. In 2020, there was a record increase in po[CENSORED]tion in Nova Scotia, with increased migration coming into every county in the province, says Boten. And in 2019, there was also record immigration numbers, thanks in part to efforts to encourage people to bring or establish their business in Nova Scotia, she says. Small business influx A lot of the businesses moving to Nova Scotia are not necessarily large national or global businesses like Jonas Software, says Joel Stoddart, a business counsellor with the Acadia Entrepreneurship Centre in Wolfville, N.S. As a specific result of the newfound ability to work from anywhere, many of these new businesses on the East Coast are small, knowledge-based businesses, he says. Darren Sequeira, a development officer with the Community Business Development Corporation (CBDC) in Hants and Kings counties, has also noticed a shift overall to self-employment, either as an individual’s employment option of choice or necessity because of COVID-19. Some individuals are relocating back to the East Coast from afar - people who have either lived here before or who see the area as an opportunity to grow and establish themselves but on a small scale of one to two employee businesses. According to Sequeira, much of the influx is coming from the western provinces. East Coast attraction Small business owners Sean Davidson and Sumana Utamawiriya are one example of entrepreneurs who selected Nova Scotia as the place they want to live and work. Davidson, who was born in Australia to a Canadian mother, recently relocated from Melbourne, Australia with his partner to Garland, a small community on the North Mountain in the Annapolis Valley. Both have worked in the event industry for 25 years and decided to move to the East Coast to start Kohkos Events. The duo's business specifically features Nordic Kata tents, which are po[CENSORED]r event tents in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Atlantic Canada seemed a natural fit because they believe the tents would look spectacular against the East Coast landscape. Davidson said they took a leap of faith, quit their jobs, and moved to the Valley in late 2018 to start their business. COVID-19 has been hard on the event industry, says Davidson, noting they ended up with only a fraction of the bookings they had anticipated last year, as people cancelled or postponed weddings and events. However, they were able to partner with a wedding planner to offer outdoor, intimate weddings. Building more partnerships with others in the region will be key to their business strategy moving forward, Davidson says. Collaboration, he believes, is the way to go in a pandemic environment to strengthen the sector and get people working together. “While still new to the area, the number of people willing to help out has been overwhelming and we feel like the support we have here is, if anything, greater than what we would get somewhere else,” says Davidson. Continuing trend? Davidson thinks the trend of businesses relocating to more remote areas is just beginning, although COVID-19 might have sped it up. "With the rise of remote work and the boom in digital platforms like Zoom, it allows people to have more flexibility with where they can live and work, more and more people are realizing that they can work effectively anywhere," he says. "They don’t necessarily need to be in the office or live in a city like Toronto or Vancouver." Stoddart says a number of people - mostly what he calls 'solopreneurs' - have realized they can run a knowledge-based business just as easily from slower-paced Kentville, for example, in a house that costs $250,000, as they could from a $1.5 million mini-apartment in busy Toronto. The benefits of running a business on the East Coast are numerous, but Davidson believes the biggest is the people. “We can honestly say the people we’ve met here have made it so much easier. Everyone wants you to succeed and are eager to help in any way they can,” says Davidson. Utamawiriya adds they also love the traffic - or lack thereof. There's no congestion to deal with, making a rural lifestyle attractive. It's everyday factors like long commutes and the associated costs that have made people re-evaluate priorities during COVID-19, adds Richardson, making the East Coast even more attractive. Technology catching up With access to internet within Nova Scotia improving with new connections coming online every day, opportunities will continue to increase, says Jennifer Angel, president and chief executive officer of Develop Nova Scotia. More than 80 per cent of the province now has access to broadband, she says. “Access to high-speed internet is vital to support inclusive economic growth and ensure safe and healthy communities in rural Nova Scotia, for those living and working here and those who may consider living and working from here,” says Angel. Also needed to attract and keep businesses is strong, solid infrastructure in terms of roads, schools, hospitals, says Broten. "We are working across government, and the public sector, to talk about the things that are important to people, and responding," she says. In terms of larger businesses, Stoddart says the lack of skilled labour has been a traditional stumbling block in rural Nova Scotia for many years. It makes it difficult for companies to re-locate here, although this is gradually changing. The other issue? A lack of housing stock when many new employees try to find houses around the location of a new industry but are unable to do so, he adds. Regardless, Broten believes COVID-19 has shone a light on business opportunities in Nova Scotia. "Amid COVID-19 closures around the world, our offices are open; our schools are open," says Broten. “We've done a really good job of managing COVID-19, which has attracted attention and resulted in articles in the New York Times and Reuters." The province is now in a great position to instill confidence in companies considering relocating like Jonas Software did, Richardson says, thanks largely to present conditions and a now-proven track record of quality handling of health concerns that may arise again. In the long term, however, reopening borders and reinstating national and international air links will be pivotal because individuals will be looking for quick connectivity to large urban areas, says Broten. As people look at their lives during COVID-19, Richardson says there's been a key change in attitude. People are evaluating their work-life balance in new ways, through the lens of “Work is now something I do, not somewhere I go.” This switch, he says, has made people question where they want to live - and lifestyle will play a major factor. "Relax and embrace the change of pace," advises Davidson to other potential newcomers. "Take the time to explore and enjoy the outdoors and everything the East Coast has to offer." Just don’t tell them about the black flies, he adds.
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