The Tor-York East (TYE) megazone represents 3,677 hectares of lands to the north, east, and south of the interchange of Highways 404 and 407, partly in the Region of York and partly in the City of Toronto. This megazone contained 106,2601 jobs in 2011.
Employment in the district increased by 9,625 net jobs between 2001 and 2011. This represents 3% of the net growth in jobs across the entire Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) during that period.
Most of the jobs in the TYE megazone are in "core" employment sectors, that is, in tradeable goods and services that drive the regional economy and bring in revenues from outside the region.2 There were 90,050 core jobs in the megazone in 2011, a net increase of 7,415 since 2001. (See Table 1 in the Appendix.)
While core employment in the TYE megazone grew between 2001 and 2011, the GGH as a whole experienced a net loss of more than 3,000 core jobs in this period, largely due to deindustrialization. Much of the region's growth since 2001 has been in non-core, population-related sectors.
Because the TYE megazone crosses municipal boundaries (it includes lands in the municipalities of Markham and Richmond Hill in York Region, and in the City of Toronto), it has not been recognized nor planned for as the significant economic and urban centre that it is. Incremental and uncoordinated planning is at odds with key planning concepts in the Growth Plan, such as the foundational idea of "complete communities."
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all employment numbers quoted in this brief represent employment with a usual place of work only - jobs without a usual place of work and at-home jobs are not included. The data are drawn from the Census of Canada place of work data.
[2] As distinct from "population-related" employment that serves local population, such as retail, personal services, and local schools.