2009 Top 100: The Essays

2009 Top 100 Companies in B.C.
More Top 100 Winners: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |

Doing the deep analysis on the 2009 Top 100 Companies in B.C.

In four essays (and one blog post), Peter Mitham, the man who tabulated the 2009 Top 100 Companies in B.C., scans the numbers behind the numbers, giving you deeper insight into the province’s Top 100 companies and the year that was in the B.C. economy.

With Bruce Springsteen in his earphones, Mitham ranges across an economy that finds itself at a precarious moment. What does he find? That instinctual consumptions are a safe bet, that politicians’ deliveries fall short of their promises, and that an important new industry is rising in B.C.

 

Lightning Storm

The Year Before the Storm


Twelve months on the brink of recession

Unemployment in B.C. today sits at 7.4 per cent, construction activity continues to languish and layoffs hit local tech companies, robbing the shine from the “golden decade” that Gordon Campbell heralded.
 

 

Conspicuous consumption

The Year of Conspicuous Consumption


Eating and drinking our way out of economic troubles

Those attending the industry gala at the Pacific Agriculture Show in Abbotsford last February might have missed B.C. Agriculture Minister Ron Cantelon’s passing remark that agriculture is a stabilizing force in difficult economic times…
   
 

Solar panels

The Year the Sun Also Rises

Green tech powers its way into the Top 100

Touted as the next sector to attract the interest of investors, green and environment-friendly technology is already making its presence felt on the list of B.C.’s top companies…
   
   

B.C. construction industry

The Year of What Goes Up

Construction stares into the abyss

Construction jobs may have swollen the province’s employment rolls when times were good, but when global financiers Lehman Brothers and others began collapsing last September, the shock waves shook the B.C. construction sector…
   

Peter Mitham

The Listmaker Speaks

A missive from the long-suffering Peter Mitham
It’s 2 p.m., and the strains of Bruce Springsteen’s “Badlands” are flowing through my earbuds as I plough through another column of data, the words somehow appropriate as I collate submissions…