This morning, I participated in Mayor Tory's Economic Recovery Advisory Panel. I am glad to be joining this group, which includes a very well thought out range of stakeholders in our city's business community. They have been engaging with the Mayor, the City Manager, and other City staff for several months to discuss the resources and actions needed to achieve a fulsome economic recovery in the City of Toronto. This work is as urgent now as ever, and there is a lot of work to be done.
It's no secret that we continue to face significant economic challenges as a result of the pandemic. We are starting to see some upwards trends in certain areas of the economy, but these are not spread evenly across sectors. If we want to not only recover but prosper as a city, we need to take an exhaustive approach and make sure we are tackling these economic challenges from every angle. The best place to start? Ensuring that our downtown core is re-animated and vibrant. This is paramount to the economic health of not only our entire city, but our province and country as well as the core represents almost 10% of the country's GDP.
In the downtown central business district, there has been about a 40% return to office. Folks working from home, whether it's a few days a week or every day, are still receiving their paycheques, but what is the broader cost of them rarely venturing into the office? Is there an impact on the food court where employees used to grab a quick lunch? The dry cleaner that doesn't have as many shirts to press? On the garage attendants, daycare centres, and the transit system they used to take every day? Absolutely.
There is a normal churn of Canadian businesses opening and closing every year. Typically, about 7000 – 12,000 new businesses open each year, with a similar number closing as businesses either merge with each other or shut down. In 2020, nearly 30,000 businesses closed as a result of the pandemic. While we're seeing a promising rebound in the total number of active businesses here in Toronto, we know that certain areas are still very hard hit, and the slow return to the core has had a continued impact.
Graphs showing pandemic impacts on active businesses and business openings/closures. This is reflected in our city's employment numbers. Some areas have more than rebounded, and you can probably guess what they are—finance, tech, and online retail have seen the largest gains. Then, there are other sectors that have not rebounded at all, and continue to have tens of thousands fewer workers than they did pre-pandemic. This includes transportation and warehousing, but the hardest hit sector by far has been hospitality and food services. The sectors with larger numbers of lower-wage workers are the ones that have not recovered fully.
At our panel this morning, we discussed the need to re-animate the downtown core at length. While businesses and members of government alike agreed that workplaces may shrink, and new mixes of use might be necessary, we need to make sure we're striking the right balance. Every sector has a vested interest in a vibrant downtown core—activity there forms the backbone of our restaurant, tourism, and arts industries, but also impacts retail sales and the operations of thousands of small businesses that cater to downtown workers. It also has a huge impact on our transit ridership. More importantly, the trends we see downtown set the tone for activity in the rest of our city—if the core falters, that ripples out to us in the suburbs.
Here in Don Valley North, we have the second largest employment zone outside of the downtown core: Parkway Centre. It's the area nestled between the 404, Victoria Park, Sheppard, and the 401. Before the pandemic hit, the Parkway Centre Business Association was working on a strategy to enhance its space and attract more A-class office space. This area, like business parks and employment lands across the city, is struggling to get their plans back on track against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and the changing nature of work. We need to do everything we can to support the long-term sustainability of areas like Parkway Centre to ensure the long-term health of all areas of our city.
Part of our Parkway Centre Business Park. I wish there was a simple solution to getting our city's economy back to where it was pre-pandemic. The reality is, we are still working on finding the best ways to reanimate the downtown core and get our city back on track. We have to acknowledge the reality of hybrid work, and create spaces that employees want to come back to. This is one of the driving missions of the Mayor's Advisory Panel, and we will continue to work with City Planning and private sector panel members to find creative solutions wherever we can. If we can get folks back out into the city, we can get on with ensuring our economy comes back strong without leaving any sector or community behind.
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