Toronto supplants US cities as fastest growing tech hub

[lio45]

London, Ontario?

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Djesus777

I always love seeing people make excuses/get triggered when a Canadian city outperforms American cities. Sorry (not sorry) we're improving while the U.S continues to spiral downwards. Stay salty

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The views expressed in the quoted post belong solely to the author. They do not necessarily represent the views held by people in the wider country, sub-regions, co-national site members. Please direct any objections or concerns toward the specific author.

Thank you.

[proghousehead]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Manhattan is really too dense to have a direct analogy to anything in Europe, except Paris. SF's density is very inline with generic European major city density, though.

Barcelona too. Central London has a similar “crush” of pedestrians. May not be as dense. But optically feels like it. Plus lower Manhattan outside of Financial District is majority low rise - like major European city centers.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by lio45

London, Ontario?

Much better than London, UK.

We got way more stroads and big box barf, and none of the charming curving streets.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

*Disclaimer*

The views expressed in the quoted post belong solely to the author. They do not necessarily represent the views held by people in the wider country, sub-regions, co-national site members. Please direct any objections or concerns toward the specific author.

Thank you.

Several other Canadians have already chimed in on the side of being unimpressed with Toronto becoming a North American hub for cheap labor / low-talent-low-cost “tech”, so he certainly doesn’t speak for everyone

[lio45]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why would they import the workers to Canada permanently as direct employees? They'd have to pay them market rate once they got to Canada which negates the point?

That said, there was a huge issue with Indian tech consulting firms (specifically Tata and Infosys) snatching up U.S. H1b visas for their workers in the lottery. The business model was to send Indian workers to the U.S. to learn the IT functions in U.S. companies and then the companies would cut their IT departments and outsource the jobs to India, and the workers would return home and perform the work from there.

Based on what I gathered from conversations with my “imported Indian software engineer” tenant, they’re not paid that much; it’s not an industry that’s unionized and where there’s an actual market rate. Having them be physically here is more productive, obviously. And they’re likely much harder workers than relatively spoiled North American Gen Z / younger Millennials.

Makes a lot of sense from the employers’ point of view.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by lio45

Several other Canadians have already chimed in on the side of being unimpressed with Toronto becoming a North American hub for cheap labor / low-talent-low-cost “tech”, so he certainly doesn’t speak for everyone

Lower cost tech salaries are still much higher than the average salaries in Toronto. I would rather be in Toronto's situation with an expanding workforce in tech even at lower salaries, than what most US cities are facing right now, which is although they have higher paying tech jobs, those jobs are disappearing and the labour force is shrinking due to global competition which Toronto is well placed to take advantage of.

As interest rates go up, the pressure will be felt more and more by un-profitable tech companies to trim cost or go out of business. Labour is the easier cost to trim.

[lio45]

Sure, but all it takes to take the wind totally off Toronto’s sails on that one is a batch of future American politicians who are as smart as Trump regarding the benefits of emulating Canada’s skill-based no-cap-per-country immigration system. Not very solid foundations

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Nite

Lower cost tech salaries are still much higher than the average salaries in Toronto. I would rather be in Toronto's situation with an expanding workforce in tech even at lower salaries, than what most US cities are facing right now, which is although they have higher paying tech jobs, those jobs are disappearing and the labour force is shrinking due to global competition which Toronto is well placed to take advantage of.

As interest rates go up, the pressure will be felt more and more by un-profitable tech companies to trim cost or go out of business. Labour is the easier cost to trim.

I'd still rather be the place actually developing companies from the ground-up. More sustainable in the long-run to organically create and innovate. You could replace "tech" with "automotive" in your post and it was probably a conversation someone had in the early 90s.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I'd still rather be the place actually developing companies from the ground-up. More sustainable in the long-run to organically create and innovate. You could replace "tech" with "automotive" in your post and it was probably a conversation someone had in the early 90s.

The places which create and innovate are currently laying off people in record numbers and Toronto will soon have more tech employees than them.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by lio45

Sure, but all it takes to take the wind totally off Toronto’s sails on that one is a batch of future American politicians who are as smart as Trump regarding the benefits of emulating Canada’s skill-based no-cap-per-country immigration system. Not very solid foundations

I can't see the US suddenly become pro-immigration since most would be non-white at the moment. if anything they will get tighter on immigration. Plus labour cost will always be lower in Canada which is the true advantage for tech firms.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Nite

Plus labour cost will always be lower in Canada which is the true advantage for tech firms.

Which is why the tech center of the planet is in the most expensive RE of any metro area on the planet.

And if strict salaries were the advantage, tech would be in Burundi, Mozambique and Somalia. Can't beat those salary tiers.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Which is why the tech center of the planet is in the most expensive RE of any metro area on the planet.

And if strict salaries were the advantage, tech would be in Burundi, Mozambique and Somalia. Can't beat those salary tiers.

I can almost guarantee they all have growing tech sectors as most African country do and those countries you listed are also relatively close to Nairobi, one of the fast growing tech hubs in the world with plenty of startups and global giant expanding their operations there. Nairobi in my opinion has an even brighter tech future than Toronto.
Work from home will mean it doesn't matter where you live. It will soon be easier to move tech jobs around the world than it is to move manufacturing jobs currently who have transportation cost to deal with.

• Video Link

[Doady]

Like many other European cities, San Francisco also has a Mediterranean climate.

[JManc]

San Francisco and Seattle have a similar vibe and feel. Between some of the built environment, progressivism, the tourism and the tech industry, i felt that of all the major US cities I've been to (I've been to all but STL, PDX, Detroit and MPLS), these two felt more similar than to anyone else. Sure, houses and neighborhoods here in Silicon Valley look LAish but overall, the immediate SF area and Seattle felt similar overall.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

Based on what I gathered from conversations with my “imported Indian software engineer” tenant, they’re not paid that much; it’s not an industry that’s unionized and where there’s an actual market rate. Having them be physically here is more productive, obviously. And they’re likely much harder workers than relatively spoiled North American Gen Z / younger Millennials.

Makes a lot of sense from the employers’ point of view.

That's not how labor laws work. In order to get a visa they would have to be paid according to the local labor market standards, which would be set based on how much Canadians would be paid to do the same work. It works like this in any country that has anything resembling a developed economy.

In the U.S. if an employer intends to hire someone requiring a visa, the company must post a job listing in a public place (usually a break room or lunch room in the office) and the listing must include the salary range for the role. There's no way that Canada doesn't have a similar law.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That's not how labor laws work. In order to get a visa they would have to be paid according to the local labor market standards, which would be set based on how much Canadians would be paid to do the same work. It works like this in any country that has anything resembling a developed economy.

In the U.S. if an employer intends to hire someone requiring a visa, the company must post a job listing in a public place (usually a break room or lunch room in the office) and the listing must include the salary range for the role. There's no way that Canada doesn't have a similar law.

If Canada had anywhere near the same levels of obstacles to importing cheap tech labor as the US, this thread would obviously not exist.

I’m pretty sure the loophole is that since those jobs aren’t unionized, you advertise a position for a software engineer at minimum wage, and then after a little while you can claim you found no Canadian to fill the position, so you can get a visa to import someone from India.

Same thing with fruit pickers - no one here wants to do it (for the wages offered), so it becomes okay for employers to import labor to do it.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

If Canada had anywhere near the same levels of obstacles to importing cheap tech labor as the US, this thread would obviously not exist.

I’m pretty sure the loophole is that since those jobs aren’t unionized, you advertise a position for a software engineer at minimum wage, and then after a little while you can claim you found no Canadian to fill the position, so you can get a visa to import someone from India.

Canada isn't importing cheap tech labor. Nor is the U.S. for that matter (obviously).

Originally Posted by lio45

Same thing with fruit pickers - no one here wants to do it (for the wages offered), so it becomes okay for employers to import labor to do it.

It's because farmers claim they can't afford to pay the legal minimum wage for fruit picking and keep the costs reasonable. It's fairly similar to why restaurant workers in the U.S. typically have a minimum wage that's half what the standard minimum is in each state.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by lio45

If Canada had anywhere near the same levels of obstacles to importing cheap tech labor as the US, this thread would obviously not exist.

There's some truth in that; but its also an exaggeration.

I’m pretty sure the loophole is that since those jobs aren’t unionized, you advertise a position for a software engineer at minimum wage, and then after a little while you can claim you found no Canadian to fill the position, so you can get a visa to import someone from India.

No loophole the way you're thinking of it.

Canada does indeed have 'prevailing wage' rules in respect of 'Temporary Foreign Workers'.

But there are a variety of reasons wages are what they are.

1) Canada has consistently (recently) provided a greater labour pool relative to demand in this sector.

It does so through the TFW program; through other VISA programs, through normal immigration; and through an aggressive IT learning pipeline through the Community College/University sector.

Through that combination of items, you have seen an adjusted labour cost that is cheaper; particularly when factored in conjunction with the currency and lower employer healthcare costs.
[/quote]

Same thing with fruit pickers - no one here wants to do it (for the wages offered), so it becomes okay for employers to import labor to do it.

The the above is true; its not really comparable in anyway to the IT sector.

Agricultural wages are miserly, and the majority of the imported workforce is moderate to low education.

The IT workforce is high education, and wages in Canada are in fact very healthy, simply notably below peak-US levels in SF, Seattle and NYC.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Nite

The places which create and innovate are currently laying off people in record numbers and Toronto will soon have more tech employees than them.

A company in San Francisco starts out with one employee in 2010. It takes off and grows to 2,000 employees by 2018. In 2022 it lays of 500 employees in SF and starts a satellite office in Toronto with 400 employees doing mostly back-end work, while retaining most management, senior developers, etc. in SF.

In this microcosm, SF lost 500 jobs and Toronto gained 400 in a year. Whose situation is still more desirable in 2022?