What seemed to be a long shot proved to be just that when Amazon released a list of the 20 finalist cities for its future headquarters.
Through a tweet shared early Thursday morning, Amazon revealed their list with Toronto being the only Canadian city to make the cut.
Today we are announcing the communities that will proceed to the next step in the HQ2 process. Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity https://t.co/x1bFYbk4Ui pic.twitter.com/J2x0HHzBTR
— Amazon News (@amazonnews) January 18, 2018
Over 235 metropolitan regions across North America submitted bids to house Amazon’s HQ2, the company’s first headquarters outside of Seattle.
Among them included Vancouver, who submitted a joint bid with Surrey, backed by the provincial government.
Had our city been successful in the bid, it would be awarded with up to 50,000 jobs with an average annual salary of $125,000 over the next 15 years.
Despite the news, Amazon will still be opening a second corporate office in Vancouver, leading to 1,000 jobs.