Weekly Regional Business Intelligence
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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.
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After four months of consecutive gains, London unemployment rate falls in May
The London-area unemployment rate posted a surprise gain in May, ending a four-month upward climb that had put the region at the top of the list for the highest jobless rate among large municipalities across the country. According to numbers released by Statistics Canada this morning, London’s unemployment rate fell to 8.7 per cent in May, down from 9.2 per cent in April. Employment in Ontario increased by 42,000 (+0.5 per cent) in May, bringing the cumulative gains for April and May to 84,000 (+1.0 per cent). At the same time, the unemployment rate in Ontario fell 0.5 percentage points to 7.0 per cent — the lowest rate since September 2024. Of the major centres in Ontario, London’s unemployment rate is now on a par with the Kitchener-Waterloo region and Barrie, which both posted an 8.7 per cent unemployment rate for May.
The upshot: Nationally, the labour market rebounded with a similar surprise gain of 88,000 jobs in May, partially offsetting a bigger drop in employment since the start of the year, Statistics Canada said. The agency said the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 per cent in May, down from 6.9 per cent in April. StatCan said May’s gains were the first significant increase in employment since November 2025. The economy had shed 112,000 net jobs in the first four months of 2026. Economists had broadly expected a more modest gain of 10,000 jobs in May and that the unemployment rate would hold steady. Growth last month was concentrated in full-time work, StatCan said, and was widespread across industries.
Read more: StatCan
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PSD Citywide expands leadership team
London-based software platform PSD Citywide is expanding its leadership ranks, naming Jeff Booth and Keith Renneker as vice president of services and chief revenue officer, respectively. Both are newcomers to the company, which took on a major investment from global VC firm Norwest in October 2025. “Jeff and Keith each bring a valuable combination of leadership, industry experience and customer focus,” said Matthew Dawe, founder and CEO of PSD Citywide (pictured in file photo). “Their expertise will strengthen the momentum PSD Citywide has already built across North America — driving strong client outcomes and keeping pace with an ever-evolving market.” Booth comes to the company from leadership roles at Cartegraph and Bexar County Government in Texas, and said he was “excited to join PSD Citywide at a time of significant growth and momentum for the company.” Renneker is described as a “seasoned revenue executive” who comes to the company form Modern Campus and Hobsons, and said he was eager to expand PSD Citywide’s “commitment to helping local governments operate more effectively.” Providing operational software solutions to local government, schools and utilities, PSD Citywide supports the management of over 450 clients across North America.
The upshot: The hiring of both Booth and Renneker suggest that PSD Citywide is preparing to make bigger growth moves, expanding its municipal client base, particularly in the U.S., where PSD said it had a 300 per cent growth rate around the time of the Norwest investment. In Booth’s previous stint at Cartegraph, the firm was primarily a U.S. player in the same municipal asset management niche that PSD Citywide is now in, before it was acquired by OpenGov in 2022, which was itself later absorbed into Cox Enterprises. He comes with contacts and relationships PSD Citywide will want to leverage as it grows. Though the terms of the Norwest investment last year weren’t disclosed, the hiring of both Booth and Renneker suggests the firm is keen to put in place the personnel to enable them to scale more rapidly. What will be worth watching in the next few years is the degree to which their attention shifts away from its traditional Ontario municipal market to larger American cities.
Read more: Newswire
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GDLS-Canada pitches new artillery vehicle to Canadian Armed Forces
London’s General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (GDLS-Canada) is making another play for a piece of Canada’s military buildup, this time pitching the armed forces on a new artillery vehicle system, the Grizzly LAV (pictured), at the Cansec 2026 Defence Conference last week. The Canadian Army doesn’t currently have a formal RFP for a weapon system of this type, but a program to procure a mobile artillery platform is at the ‘options analysis’ stage, one step before the program is officially launched. “This is very exciting. The Grizzly satisfies the artillery requirements the Canadian Army is now looking for,” GDLS-Canada corporate affairs manager Jay Hancock told The London Free Press. “The potential to support this and deliver it to the Canadian Army and also export it around the world is excellent.” If GDLS-Canada lands the contract, the hull of the mobile artillery system will be built in London, with the guns built in Germany.
The upshot: Though any actual purchase contract from the armed forces might be a ways off, it would be a nice fit in the expanding regional defence sector — this weapon system also happens to use 155mm artillery shells, the same calibre that are set to be produced at IMT Precision in Ingersoll following an investment in a plant there, so there could be some alignment in the future. Whether this pitch is enough to sway the army into moving the project into a formal RFP stage is another matter. The Canadian Army doesn’t have a weapons platform like this anymore, having retired its last self-propelled artillery in 2005, and it hasn’t exactly been rushing around to find a new one. And with a complicated enough procurement process that has historically been perpetually behind schedule, we’ll have to wait and see if they want to add a mobile artillery system to the mix. There’s a desire at the federal level to keep pushing work towards GDLS-Canada and keep the defence manufacturing sector happy right now, so it won’t be all that surprising to see more contracts headed this way.
Read more: London Free Press | MilitaryLeak.com
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Apartment construction pushes London housing starts to new heights
A glut of apartment construction pushed London’s housing starts number up considerably to begin the year, according to new figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). Boosted by nearly 800 units started in April alone, the London area has notched 1,965 housing starts, 82 per cent of which are apartment units, up from 367 starts last year, and marking the best start to the year in the past 10 years. “In London, especially, the numbers have been very strong so far this year,” Anthony Passarelli, CMHC lead economist for Southwestern Ontario, told The London Free Press. “We do think it’s a bit front-loaded. It won’t continue at this pace, but there are still rental apartments in the pipeline that could get started later in the year. Just may not be at the same pace as the first four months.”
The upshot: It’s a solid recovery from a lull in 2025, when housing starts overall were down 25 per cent in the London region. ‘Best start in a decade’ is certainly an improvement, but it also illustrates that these stats can be lumpy at times: the hot start to the year does is largely influenced by the start of a few large projects, so it’s best to wait for the yearly figures before making any pronouncements. There are also general market uncertainties for the purpose-built rental sector. The rental apartment vacancy rate in the region has loosened to around 3.5 to four per cent, which is still tight but is a big change from the low of 1.4 per cent in 2023, so it will be interesting to see the impact of all these units when they hit the market. In addition, the labour market in the region has been struggling, and population growth has been slowing. New apartments tend to enter closer to the top end of the market price-wise, so there’s a bit of a gamble being made here that the market will not have softened so much that property managers struggle to lease new units — something the market is seeing in Toronto, where even steep incentives haven’t made it easy to fill new purpose-built rental units.
Read more: London Free Press
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Carfax Canada puts move to Westmount in play
One of London’s established core-area tech firms may be heading back out to the suburbs. Carfax Canada, which employs 600 people (with plans to grow to 800) is reportedly considering a move from 100 Kellogg Lane to a larger space at Westmount Shopping Centre. The move currently hinges on Carfax’s expansion plans. Mall owner Farhi Holdings has applied to the city to rezone the property to allow a single office of up to 135,000 square feet, a move that would accommodate Carfax without requiring building of additional space. That was a sticking point at 100 Kellogg Lane, where an entire new building would need to be built, pushing up leasing costs for the company. “They want 100,000 square feet, and we would have to build a tower. We can’t compete against vacant space,” said 100 Kellogg Lane partner and property manager Martha Leach, speaking to The London Free Press. “I think they will enjoy Westmount. I’m happy for them.” Carfax currently leases around 60,000 square feet of space at 100 Kellogg.
The upshot: Everyone seems to be treating this story with a level of immediacy — Councillor Steve Lehman, for instance, even expressed concern that Carfax might be picking up and leaving London (Carfax itself says it is not doing this), and there’s still four years left on the company’s lease at 100 Kellogg. Everyone might be playing a long game here: Carfax might be floating the idea it could move out to the ‘burbs in an effort to get better lease terms with 100 Kellogg (or incentives from the city, who all things considered would rather have them stay closer to downtown, if not in downtown itself); Farhi Holdings want a rezoning passed that would, in addition to potentially housing Carfax, double the amount of office space permitted at the mall, allowing them to pursue other commercial clients; and 100 Kellogg’s play here is to shrug their shoulders and seem unbothered by a 2030 problem that may or may not materialize. “I think we will be able to fill that space,” said Leach. “We have some time. We first leased to them when we were in our first stages of leasing office space, but now we have a lot of inquiries we’re not able to accommodate.”
Read more: London Free Press
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Council moves ahead with Wellington BRT design despite commercial complaints
Council is forging ahead with plans to expropriate a small sliver of land along Wellington Road to accommodate road widening for the new BRT route, despite complaints from a commercial landowner. Skyline Retail Real Estate Holdings, which owns the shopping plaza at Wellington and Commissioners (the plaza includes a McDonald’s, Metro and Mandarin Restaurant), is frustrated that the expropriation means the bus lanes will eventually prevent left turns into the plaza for northbound drivers on Wellington, saying it amounts to a minimum $12-million loss in property value. Council rejected a request by Skyline to add a traffic light between Commissioners and Baseline to enable-left hand turns, with city staff concluding such a move “would actually require additional pedestrian crossing time and further reduce the signal efficiency of the entire corridor.” Council said drivers could turn left at Commissioners and take a different entrance to the shopping plaza, or pull a U-turn at Baseline and turn right into the existing driveway, and that adding another light would mean three sets of traffic lights in short succession.
The upshot: The city was unmoved by Skyline’s appeal. In response to Skyline’s suggestion that it may pursue a claim under the Expropriations Act, Councillor Sam Trosow said: “I think it’s fair to say we’re being threatened with litigation if we don’t back down from something that, in the opinion of our staff, is a standard safety feature.” Skyline’s letter to council, however, notes something else: London Health Sciences Centre is, apparently, planning to build its own entranceway on the east side of the street, right where Skyline wants to see a traffic light. “The LHSC access was not even contemplated by the Wellington Gateway BRT project team,” Skyline’s letter claims. “This is an important new fact which warrants the city reconsidering this location as an appropriate spot for a signalized access.” On its face, this seems like it might be pertinent — the city staff report that council voted on this week indeed made no mention of this future LHSC driveway, so it may be that the plan gets updated when that driveway project moves further along.
Read more: CTV News London
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Dispatch: June 5, 2026
A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.
View listings here
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