British Columbia’s largest digital arts companies are on an upward trend despite a decrease in workforce at some of the sector’s largest players, according to data collected on Business in Vancouver’s list of the province’s biggest digital arts companies (page 16).
Average B.C. employment at the top firms grew 22.8% over the past four years. However, two of the list’s largest companies with five years of data available suffered large declines in staffing, which reduced the overall average employment increase for the top five 6.5% over the past five years.
From 2018 to 2021, median employment for the province’s largest digital arts companies grew at nearly triple the rate of their average employment. It increased 58.7% to 293.5 employees in 2021 from 185 in 2018. This suggests that smaller companies lower on the list grew more than larger companies higher on the list.
Average employment fell 7.8% during 2020, the first year of the pandemic, but has since recovered.
B.C. employment at No. 1 Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:EA) peaked at 2,085 in 2019 after growing 39% compared with 2018.
However, that growth was short lived.
In 2020, Electronic Arts’ B.C. staff numbers fell 37.6% to 1,300 employees. The decrease continued into the pandemic’s second year as employment dropped an additional 3.9% to 1,250 employees.
While Electronic Arts hasn’t recovered from 2020 pandemic employment losses, other digital arts companies on the list have.
No. 7 Bardel Entertainment Inc. suffered a 19% employment drop to 405 employees in 2020 from 500 in 2019, but it was able to recover all of those jobs in 2020 with a one-year rise of 23.5%.
Meanwhile, No. 4 Mainframe Studios Inc. recorded the largest one-year increase in staff numbers among companies on the list: up 62.5% to 650 employees in 2021 from 400 in 2020. •
