Greater Toronto's Top Employers (2025) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 3
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CLIQ/HIROC
( 2025 )
GREATER TORONTO’S
TOP EMPLOYERS
Anthony Meehan,
PUBLISHER
Editorial Team:
Richard Yerema,
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Kristina Leung,
MANAGING EDITOR
Chantel Watkins,
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Sonja Verpoort,
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Juliane Fung,
RESEARCH EDITOR
Cypress Weston,
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Vithusa Vimalathasan,
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Krista Robinson,
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Advertising Team:
Kristen Chow,
MANAGING DIRECTOR, PUBLISHING
Ye Jin Suhe,
MANAGER, PUBLISHING
Chariemagne Kuizon,
PUBLISHING COORDINATOR
Vishnusha Kirupananthan,
SENIOR BRANDING & GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Sponsored Profile Writers:
Berton Woodward,
SENIOR EDITOR
Brian Bethune
Deborah Bourk
Abigail Cukier
Mary Dickie
Jane Doucet
Steven Frank
Don Hauka
D’Arcy Jenish
Diane C. Jermyn
Sara King-Abadi
Allison Lawlor
Tom Mason
Michael McCullough
Rick McGinnis
Kelsey Rolfe
Diane Sims
Stacey Stein
Barbara Wickens
©2024 Mediacorp Canada Inc. All rights reserved. Greater Toronto’s Top
Employers is a product of Mediacorp. The Globe and Mail distributes the online
magazine but is not involved in the editorial content, judging or selection of
winners. GREATER TORONTO’S TOP EMPLOYERS is a trade mark of Mediacorp.
Editorial inquiries: ct100@mediacorp.ca
Two employees, Abi and Alicia, of Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada / HIROC attend the firm’s
annual summer outing for staff.
H
ome to more than 7 million residents, the
Greater Toronto Area is one of the most
dynamic urban areas on the planet. It’s the
most competitive employment market in
Canada and the third-largest in North
America. The region is responsible for half of Ontario’s
GDP and nearly one-fifth of Canada’s economic output.
Beyond these dry economic statistics, however, is a story
about people coming in search of opportunity. Each year,
the GTA welcomes over 100,000 new immigrants and, by
2051, the region’s population is expected to grow beyond 10
million residents. More than fifty percent of GTA residents
were born in another country and they speak over 190
languages and major dialects.
The region is a hub for innovation and technology,
hosting a remarkable 18 universities and colleges, many of
them world-renowned. It’s easy to see this investment in
human capital in the GTA’s technology sector, which has
become the third-largest in North America, after Silicon
Valley and New York City. Similarly, the GTA is home to
one of North America’s largest life sciences sectors,
employing over 47,000 people in fields such as medical
research, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals.
Even with the recent challenges in new condo construction, downtown Toronto still has more construction cranes
on its skyline (83 last month) than its nearest three
competitors in North America (Seattle, Denver & NYC)
combined. The GTA is a magnet for talent and investment,
with companies and their employees putting roots down
to build a future here.
This year marks the 19th edition of our Greater Toronto’s
Top Employers competition and, once again, our editorial
team was presented with an enormous challenge deciding
which GTA employers stood apart from their peers in
offering progressive workplaces and forward-thinking
human resources policies. This year was easily the most
competitive yet, with previous winners raising the bar and
new entrants cherry-picking the best policies from across
industries to attract and retain employees.
From improved vacation policies to increased help for
new mothers and young families, employers in the GTA
are going the extra distance to compete not just with each
other, but increasingly to attract highly specialized talent
from around the world. For example, artificial intelligence
and pharmaceuticals are just two areas with enormous
potential where the best and brightest are highly mobile;
GTA employers in these fields are competing to attract
talent from around the world.
In this year’s announcement magazine, the largest in
the competition’s history, you’ll notice that something else
has changed at GTA employers: people are getting
together socially at work again. After pandemic lockdowns
and a focus on remote work, GTA employers are doubling
down on social events for their staff and creating opportunities for people to form human connections. More than
just giving staff a good reason to come into the office,
company-organized events like volunteering at local
charities or just having a communal meal with colleagues
remind us that work still retains a vital social dimension.
More than 50 years ago, Studs Terkel observed in the
preface to his groundbreaking book Working this essential
truth about working life:
“It’s about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as
daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for
astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of
life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.
Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be
remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the
heroes and heroines of this book.”
Terkel is not the first to shine a spotlight on the profound
connection between working life and self-identity, with all
its facets and complexities. This year’s Greater Toronto’s Top
Employers winners know well what Terkel discovered in
his interviewees over a half-century ago.
–Tony Meehan
