Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
nytimes.com
Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#2Toronto is a no-brainer for most US tech companies. Cheaper to hire, abundant talent, similar (enough) culture, accessible time zone and very permissive immigration laws if you want to bring in more talent.
Salaries are increasing as a result, although the benefits have been masked by inflation, especially for real estate. The long term question is whether the increased demand for Toronto tech talent from US companies translates into more Canadian startups and successful Canadian companies.
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#3Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#4I welcome anything that helps to grow Toronto and other Canadian cities. But the already unaffordable housing market[1] will become even worse for average Toronto household[2] if the tech talent continues to move into the city.
[1] https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth-management/insights/202...
[2] https://www.narcity.com/toronto/the-surprising-average-incom...
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#5> The big American companies came to Toronto in part because the cost of the talent was lower. According to the recruitment website Hired, the average annual tech salary in Toronto was 117,000 Canadian dollars in 2020 (only about $90,000 in U.S. dollars), versus $165,000 in Silicon Valley. But many local start-ups are now saying that because demand has suddenly risen, so have salaries, and it has become much harder to hire the talent they need.
Beyond this there's also the exchange rate difference. The gap is not as large as it was in the 1990s, but there's still some upside for Canadian work for hire shops that get paid by American companies in US dollars.
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#6You could probably do a find and replace "Toronto" with "Vancouver" and come up with just about the same article. Tech industry in that city has also been on a big upswing in the last few years for the same reasons.
Amazon and Microsoft have been expanding in a big way amongst many other US tech firms.
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#7I just moved to Toronto from Vancouver. The pay gap between Canada and US is closing. I got FAANG
salary about 20% less than my US coworkers after conversion. However, I think I may still consider moving to the US in the future to have the opportunity to explore other cities. As well as save more to afford housing here in Canada.
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#8I just moved to Toronto from Vancouver. The pay gap between Canada and US is closing. I got FAANG salary about 20% less than my US coworkers after conversion. However, I think I may still consider moving to the US in the future to have the opportunity to explore other cities. As well as save more to afford housing here in Canada.
did you move for the opportunity you got in particular, for a generally bigger market, or for a completely different reason? To me it seems like both Vancouver and Toronto now have a fair amount of opportunities
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#9I welcome anything that helps to grow Toronto and other Canadian cities. But the already unaffordable housing market[1] will become even worse for average Toronto household[2] if the tech talent continues to move into the city. [1] https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth-management/insights/202... [2] https://www.narcity.com/toronto/the-surprising-average-incom...
the housing market is definitely bad - but are tech workers really a significant driver? Here in Vanouver the amount of tech workers overall are still low (far below 1% of population) - and a lot of them are younger singles which maybe are in the market for 1 bedroom condo. However prices for all housing types exploded, including single-family homes being now at an average sales price of 2M which isn't even affordable to lots of tech workers.
What I also found interesting about link [2] is that Alberta households have the highest average income, and despite that housing is a lot more affordable there. That somewhat contradicts that housing cost is driven by income.
Re: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town
#10Wake me up when Toronto or Vancouver salaries aren't 35-40% lower as measured in USD than the same role in a major US city. Even in a state with high state income taxes like NY or CA. Haven't seen it happening yet.