Briefing highlights
- Toronto a 'city of opportunity'
- Global markets mixed
- Video: Use of social media in the office
City of ‘opportunity’
A new study ranks Toronto as one of the three best cities in the world in which to live.
And it is a wonderful city. But it sure is expensive. And the subway’s hot, to boot.
The “Cities of Opportunity” report, released this week by PricewaterhouseCoopers, is justifiably flattering as it ranks Toronto No. 3 behind second-place Singapore and first-place London.
“The city may be calm, cold a good bit of the year, and overshadowed by the ‘buzz’ in U.S. cities to the south, but its performance clearly shows that a strong economy and high quality of life can exist very happily a bit farther from the madding crowd,” it said.
“We need only add that Toronto ranks in the top 10 in seven of 10 indicators but does particularly well in those categories that speak to the daily needs and concerns of urban residents,” it added.
The study ranks 30 cities on those 10 indicators, from livability, transportation and the ease of doing business, to tech preparedness and security.
Toronto scored well on health, safety and security, the environment and cost.
On the latter, inflation may in fact be tame, but salaries aren’t exactly surging either, as The Globe and Mail’s Janet McFarland reports.
According to a study this week by Aon Hewitt, top executives in the Toronto area are getting raises of 2.8 per cent this year. For junior managers and professionals, it’s 2.7 per cent this year, for admin and tech staff, it’s 2.3 per cent, and for the “manual work force” 2.5 per cent.
That’s above Toronto’s annual inflation rate, which is now running at 1.7 per cent, but really nothing to write home about.
If you can afford a home.
It’s true that Toronto scored well in costs in the PwC report, but that category takes in a raft of indicators, including rent, cost of living, and corporate and personal taxes.
Home ownership is obviously a biggie, and Toronto is known particularly for its unrelenting price surge, as The Globe and Mail’s Brent Jang reports. A single detached home in the city core now goes for an average $1.2-million.
Indeed, BMO Nesbitt Burns senior economist Douglas Porter warned that where Toronto housing is concerned, “without some kind of intervention, this market risks becoming a runaway train.”
The latest Royal Bank of Canada look at housing found Toronto at its most “stressed” in 25 years.
One last kvetch: While the PwC reports Toronto can be cold at times, it’s particularly hot now, notably on the subway, as Mayor John Tory learned Wednesday.
As The Globe and Mail’s Oliver Moore writes, Mr. Tory found the discomfort on his ride “considerable.”
Markets mixed
Global markets are mixed so far, with New York poised for a slightly higher open.
Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 0.3 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.8 per cent, and the Shanghai composite 0.1 per cent.
In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.4 per cent by about 7:40 a.m. ET, though Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were down by between 0.1 and 0.2 per cent.