The CEO of the Windsor-Essex Economic Development Corporation believes business retention, expansion and attraction are the top priorities this year.
Although the jobless rate is down in Windsor-Essex at 5.4% in December, Stephen McKenzie says the work to attract jobs to the region hasn't stopped.
"We are trying to, one of our themes is we want to drive disruption and lead it and not be victims of it."
He says the new USMCA agreement last year has helped.
"When there was an agreement on that, it actually started some companies reactivated their expansion plans but the tariffs, the steel and aluminium tariffs especially with our machine, tool and die-mould cluster, the auto parts cluster, as you can imagine, there is significant impact there."
CEO of the Windsor-Essex Economic Development Corporation Stephen MacKenzie (Photo by AM800's Zander Broeckel)
But McKenzie says the steel and aluminum tariffs are hitting some local businesses hard.
"Their business cycle or their contracts with their customers are years long, you are planning out on sometimes two to three years."
McKenzie points out that diversification is key which includes not only attracting new businesses to the region, but expanding local busineses with more customers.
The steel and aluminum tariffs were imposed by the Trump government in 2018 which prompted Canada to impose retaliatory tariffs on steel and aluminum months later.