Reading Nanaimo’s Economic Signals

Why growth alone won’t define the Harbour City’s future.

For decades, Nanaimo offered something that is becoming harder to find in British Columbia: the feeling that ordinary working households could establish themselves here and expect that effort, over time, would lead to stability.

You could work a trade, start a small business, raise a family, buy a home, build something of your own. The city was never perfect and never particularly polished, but it carried a strong sense of practicality and independence. People could still see a future for themselves here.

People could still see a future for themselves here. But the city is changing, and not always in ways that preserve what made it work for ordinary households. The recently published 2026 State of the Nanaimo Economy Report suggests that might be getting harder.

Nanaimo on Paper

On paper, many of the numbers still look positive: population growth remains strong, major projects are moving ahead, visitor spending is up, and we’re fortunate to be on the receiving end of new investments.

But the more pressing question is what kind of economy is being built behind the numbers.

The Conversation Has Changed

Across North America, governments and businesses are paying renewed attention to industrial capacity, infrastructure, supply chains, domestic production, and energy systems. After decades of assuming growth would largely take care of itself, communities are once again talking about resilience, self-sufficiency, and productive work.

Nanaimo should be part of that conversation.

It isn’t healthy for a city to rely entirely on rising land values, population growth, public spending, and consumption. It also needs businesses that build things, move goods, develop expertise, create skilled jobs, and generate value that reaches beyond the local market.

Right now, significant investments in healthcare, post-secondary education, K–12 facilities, and other major public and institutional projects are carrying most of Nanaimo’s development activity while private industrial and commercial investment  has softened considerably. Public sector development is important and will strengthen the region for decades, but it needs to be balanced with the types of private-sector activity capable of sustaining employment, wages, productivity, and reinvestment over time.

Nanaimo has real advantages here: port access, transportation links, industrial land, skilled trades capacity, growing institutions, and a strategic position on Vancouver Island. The opportunity to build a more productive and resilient local economy is real, but so is the competition from other communities pursuing the same investment, industries, and skilled workforce.

One of the ways to compete and win is by ensuring that housing, childcare, and other essential needs are attainable and affordable. These are the foundations that unlock participation in the economy, and housing is chief among them. 

Is Housing the Bottleneck?

The report shows apartment rents in Nanaimo rising another 8.2% in 2025 while vacancy rates continued falling. Anyone trying to hire staff, raise a family, rent an apartment, or buy a first home can already feel the pressure building across the community.

When nurses, tradespeople, educational assistants, line cooks, technicians, mechanics, caregivers, and younger families struggle to remain in a city long-term, the consequences eventually show up everywhere: longer commutes, staffing shortages, burnout, slower service, and fewer younger households putting down roots in the community itself.

Workforce housing now functions as infrastructure whether communities choose to describe it that way or not.

A City in Flux

The report also points toward a broader shift in the composition of Nanaimo’s economy and population. By 2030, residents over 65 are projected to become the city’s largest age cohort. At the same time, the report shows rising household incomes increasingly tied to non-employment sources while labour-force participation has softened in recent years.

None of those trends are inherently negative on their own – in fact, many people are choosing Nanaimo precisely because of its quality of life – but taken together, they raise larger questions about whether Nanaimo remains a city where working households can still build stable lives tied to work, enterprise, and local opportunity.

Nanaimo has long been a working city, and the local economy still contains a strong layer of tradespeople, independent operators, family-run businesses, and companies with deep local ties. Roughly 70% of local businesses are locally owned and operated.

But it’s easy for communities to drift toward economies driven mostly by retirement wealth, rising property values, and consumption. The unfortunate result, however, is that younger households leave, local ownership weakens, and working life gets pushed farther to the edges. The community can grow steadily for years while becoming less resilient underneath.

Worthy of the Foundations

Nanaimo’s history has given the community a stronger foundation than many cities currently possess. The city remains comparatively accessible, locally grounded, and economically diverse, with real advantages in geography, industry, institutions, and quality of life. Preserving those strengths through the next period of economic transition will require intentional choices around productive growth, workforce housing, local ownership, and long-term resilience. The opportunity now is to secure a future worthy of the foundations previous generations helped build.