Economic Resiliency

Goal: Strengthen Economic Resiliency with a Focus on Equity and Climate Change Adaptation

Summary

NBLC will prioritize and strengthen our economic resiliency, focusing on equity and climate change adaptation. We will focus on workforce development as there continues to be a high demand for skilled workers. That demand continues to push wages and benefits higher, stressing many businesses, especially when coupled with inflation. Those challenges are exacerbated by climate change impacts, lack of workforce housing, and taxes and regulations pushing some companies to leave or grow elsewhere.

NBLC will work with other employer organizations to support sound business policies and regulations and encourage businesses to grow and thrive in North Bay. 

Companies have fresh opportunities to make their operations more resilient and sustainable as they experiment out of necessity—for example, with higher-energy-efficiency manufacturing and processing, remote workforces, and increased digitization of sales and marketing. We can also work to address some issues that were heightened during the pandemic, such as workforce well-being, adoption of family-friendly practices, ensuring the workplace is safe for all, improving access to training, providing more affordable childcare, and more. As we strengthen the economy, we must ensure that adaptations to climate change are included and implemented. 

NBLC seeks every opportunity to leverage North Bay’s regional competitive advantages to ensure employers can prosper and create high-paying jobs. NBLC seeks to close the skills gap and to upskill the workforce to match the job requirements of the 21st-century positions. We want to create high-paying jobs commensurate with this region's high cost of living. Today, companies go where the talent is, and we want that talent to stay in the North Bay.

Our Priorities

  • Removing barriers for targeted industries’ growth in the region.

  • Assisting organizations in developing business operations’ plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Shop Local campaigns.

  • Industry-based, worker-focused training partnerships and improving access to capital for small business owners, generating family-supporting jobs.

  • The encouragement of innovation and entrepreneurship through the creation of more business incubators and accelerators with a focus on equity, sustainability, and job quality.

  • Attracting more angel and venture capital and other and access to capital in the North Bay.

  • An increase in capacity and affordability of childcare in the North Bay.

  • Initiatives to improve infrastructure, especially those that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, include transportation improvements, non-fossil fuel energy resilience, broadband, water and wastewater systems, and incentivize building retrofits.

  • The coordination of regional efforts to implement broadband improvements.

  • Fostering diversification to bring in new businesses, particularly higher paying job opportunities in technology, “green tech,” and other sectors, that will provide new revenues.

  • A change to land use and zoning to reflect new realities post-pandemic, such as changes in commercial building use and land use designations.

  • Partnering with other business organizations to regionalize economic development and competitiveness efforts to spur job creation, foster more entrepreneurism and innovation, and encourage business expansion and retention in the North Bay.

  • Working with governmental agencies to be more business-friendly; take action on proposed legislation or regulations that would affect the business climate.