Canada doesn't have a shortage of talent. It has a problem retaining them.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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I often hear this repeated, but I've never seen any evidence for this claim. I'm a highly educated immigrant to Canada, and I can't imagine ever going back to the US. And it's not like most immigrants can just easily shop around for other countries.
A problem retaining them? Really?
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221130/dq221130a-eng.htm
We're literally the most educated G7 country (57.5% of the population has a bachelors degree or better)
We have many problems here in Canada, but retaining talent is not one of them.
Yes I agree with you. Canadians are quite well educated. The problem becomes the lack of opportunities for all of those people. You end up strong competition for little jobs, which drives the wages down. Couple that with the very expensive housing market, and you get educated young adults that struggle to settle down.
Across the border in the US, opportunities in the STEM and plenty and wages are much better. US has lots of problems, but attracting talent is not one of them and Canadians talent is super easy to enter the US
I'd worked on and off in the US for 10ish years at one point. Whether it works out financially depends entirely on where you end up. Sometimes wages are higher, sometimes a fair wash. Housing is likewise. Reading Pennsylvania is cheap, San Fran isn't, and so on.
It's the same in Canada. Want to live in the GTA or Vancouver? You're gonna get reamed on housing. Okay living in Regina, Winnipeg or Moncton? You'll be fine.
You also have to take a very close look at benefits. Employers like to play a shell game with benefits. At one place the health coverage may be better, but retirement contributions worse, or fewer days of paid leave etc. That salary can get chewed up pretty quickly with additional healthcare costs, not to mention school and property taxes, and, in places like Florida, home owner's insurance.
Can it be beneficial to work in the US? Absolutely. But it's not necessarily beneficial.
Absolutely. Actually letting people work as trained here would be a huge step forward.
When there's PhD people driving taxi, I understand them when they quit Canada
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As a Canadian in a TN-1 eligible line of work, I'd have it a lot easier than most if I wanted to work in the U.S.
The money is enticing but the system there is so broken I'm not sure if I'd still want to, even for an immediate 30% bump in pay.
Housing is a big problem, we have to get the speculation market out and focus on ensuring we can keep the brains that the U.S. throws to the wayside, from their slow and somewhat racist immigration policies.
Oh hell yeah, that made me proud.
It's pretty shocking the US is that much worse when I consider how Kafkaesque our system looks.
Funny, I felt the exact opposite lol. Makes me ashamed that our housing situation is so ridiculous that the only reason people want to come here is because the US immigration system is so busted.
Also scares me that if they ever get it together over there we are royally boned.
Also scares me that if they ever get it together over there we are royally boned.
if they ever get it together over there
Phew!
Seriously though, I really can't see them not only fixing their immigration system, but doing it in a way that lets in more immigrants in, any time soon at least. I'd be less surprised by a coup or something - although both would fundamentally challenge my understanding of their system.
Very informative video. Thank you for sharing. The success of the program to attract US H1-B workers was shown recently with this news.
Feels like the biggest problem is still the tech industry tbh (and by extension startups).
Canada lacks jobs because the growth profile of employers (large, established companies that grow slowly) doesn't match the growth profile of the population (which expands quickly and needs more dynamicity). Likewise, Canada's tech wages are low not because of low base salaries, but low stock compensation. This is inherently because the startup environment is not competitive enough for larger companies to have to compete with stock options. Comparing Google to Shopify again, a senior SWE makes 149k vs. 205k USD (difference being mostly the strong USD and weak CAD). However, while Shopify might give 20k in RSUs or other stock-based compensation, Google gives around 140k, increasing total compensation by more than 50%. That's the difference. That's always been the difference.
Today, Canada likely has one of the highest rates of poorly utilized skilled workers. In the US, that would translate into hundreds of startups trying to make it big. In Canada? It seems to translate into taxi drivers and real estate workers. That needs to change.