It was a good year last year for the Quinte region despite dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for a second year.
The Quinte Economic Development Commission held their Annual General Meeting on Thursday afternoon and Chief Executive Officer Chris King felt confident about last year.
He said in 2021 while there were some challenges, it was a good year.
“Lots of really good projects, both in terms of investment attraction but the flip side was the retention side, helping to retain and grow those existing companies, and our active outreach that that labour market partnership allows us to do to stay in touch with our industry, understand their issues, try to address their barriers, help them with opportunity.”
King noted there were 35 company participants in last year’s Elevate Plus Manufacturing program with over 400 employees trained. He said this has translated into over 200 full time jobs.
On the monetary side of things, QEDC finished the year with a $50,765 surplus.
King noted the expenditures increased, but they were still able to meet all of their cash flow obligations.
The QEDC will continue to focus on six target sectors which include: food processing, technology, business services, advanced manufacturing, logistics and cannabis.
King says the manufacturing industry is a major part of this community as over half the region’s economic output is from the manufacturing sector.
“Manufacturing is an important economic driver and the numbers keep bearing out that this is an important sector. So I just kind of want to reinforce that one with everyone, why we’re doing it. Almost 9,000 jobs in manufacturing and then the total wages paid, we’re working in a sector that has above average wages and lots of jobs and that’s why we continue to focus on the manufacturing sector.”
