7 ms·

Seems like any company in Ontario should have a really easy time hiring just by offering competitive salaries. They wanna offer $100K CAD and think that's high,

Seems like any company in Ontario should have a really easy time hiring just by offering competitive salaries. They wanna offer $100K CAD and think that's high, come on. Bump that up to 130K (that's only 100K USD) and perhaps some people would be interested. I met someone else complaining about this, that they hired everyone they could and were desperate. Their salaries were around $60K. Don't see how anyone can be scratching their heads over that.

TheCowboy 9y ago
It's become cliche for companies to complain about a talent shortage while wage statistics don't rise in response. I've heard restaurant owners complain about not being able to attract and retain quality wait staff while they pay the tipped minimum wage (less than $3 per hour). This attitude has to change. If a company can make significantly more money by hiring someone, then they should be aggressively increasing wages to signal to the market that they are serious. It's basically refusing to participate in the free market, or a complete lack of understanding of how markets work. Business managers frequently act like they understand economics better than economists yet this attitude should telegraph a level of cluelessness that makes them unfit to manage a hiring process. Everyone wants to pay less and get more talent. If you can't afford to pay more then compete on other aspects---allow remote work, more flex-time, and so on. Try something different in your interviews. Offer apprenticeships. Sometimes it's not even a pure talent shortage that force increasing wages. In San Francisco the housing shortage and lack of support for new construction wipes out a lot of gains that come with higher salaries.
- mabbo 9y ago
  > In San Francisco the housing shortage and lack of support for new construction wipes out a lot of gains that come with higher salaries. You can even see that problem get worse as people leave. Fantastic dev I worked with moved from Seattle back to India. She said that yes, she made more money in Seattle, but cost of living was so low in Bangalore that she effectively made a lot more money there. Coupled with her family being closer, it made perfect sense.
  - debacle 9y ago
    You can retire comfortably in many places in India on 1 year of a developer's salary in the US.
  - huac 9y ago
    If you don't care about buying 'big ticket' items e.g. iPhones, MacBooks, VR, etc, - this is true. But these items don't change in price depending on where you are, and are likely much harder to buy as a result.
    - claudiulodro 9y ago
      Would you rather own a house and a Xiaomi phone or never be able to afford a house and own an iPhone? iPhones are cool, but houses are cooler.
      - snewk 9y ago
        and houses in seattle are a lot 'cooler' than houses in bangalore
        phinnaeus 9y ago
        Not if they actually build houses with A/C in Bangalore. (mostly joking)
        livingparadox 9y ago
        Does it matter if the house in seattle is cooler if you're never going to be able to buy it?
      - toomanybeersies 9y ago
        Some of us have no desire to actually own a house, as far as a home goes. I'm no opposed to buying a house for investment, but have no real urge to live in my own house.
        9y ago
- ben_jones 9y ago
  The problem is companies like this are constantly rewarded by young drop-outs and fresh grads who have faced adversity entering the job market and will take any job. These people are living with their parents and have never been truly employed. They will take these jobs and work their butts off, validating these same managerial processes. You don't give them enough credit. This process works for them sometimes. And sometimes is evidently enough.
  - TheCowboy 9y ago
    I think this arguably reinforces my point if a company has a process that works yet they complain about a talent shortage. Part of this complaining can be an attempt to influence/distort government policy, justify a flawed or exploitative hiring process, or managing who to blame when they miss a quota. I definitely agree that what you said is part of reality for some companies, which is why I think it's important to aggressively point out that there are solutions when the "skill shortage" is brought up. Additionally, if underpaying younger talent is prevalent, then all the more reason a company should offer competitive salaries to recent graduates when faced with a shortage. They'd start booking some easy wins.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    It would seem at least a little disingenuous for a company to hire new grads who will take any job and then turn around to complain about skills shortage. I'm not saying that grads don't ever have skills, but if the company tends to hire desperate noobs then they aren't (or are just barely) shopping for the skills they say they need.
- mahyarm 9y ago
  People complain about their costs going up, just like most people complain about their rent / housing costs going up.
JOnAgain 9y ago
It's frustrating. A huge number of top grads move to the US when they graduate for 30-50% higher pay, before exchange rate. Even Amazon will offer you 50% more to move to the US vs. Toronto.
- ghettoCoder 9y ago
  How is this Amazon's fault? Maybe if Canadian companies weren't such tightwads they would have a better success rate in hiring top talent. And I say this as a Canadian.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    confused how you read any of these comments as bashing amazon and excusing canadian companies
    - ghettoCoder 9y ago
      I didn't read it as you bashing Amazon. I read as Amazon is "stealing" all the talent by offering better wages, etc...
debacle 9y ago
I don't think you can make an apples to apples comparison of salaries between Canada in the US.
- chrshawkes 9y ago
  Why not?
  - xinsight 9y ago
    Health insurance amakes an apples-to-apples comparison difficult.
    - MichaelGG 9y ago
      Sure, but even if you count $1K a month for health insurance, it's still hardly competitive. Even at $2K they're only starting to get close. And from what I see, $120K CAD is basically the absolute top you're going to get as a very experienced dev.
      - david-gpu 9y ago
        I think that depends on the specific skillset they are looking for. In the systems software industry $120K CAD total compensation is about half of what a Senior Staff makes based on what I've seen. Generally speaking, people need to start being more proactive asking for raises and switching to higher paying jobs if we want compensation in the GTA job market to improve.
        mattm 9y ago
        This is part of the problem. Canadians are generally more complacent and have a lower tolerance for conflict compared to Americans from what I've seen. (I'm Canadian)
      - sdm 9y ago
        I can't speak for other regions, but for Vancouver $120k CAD is about the upper end of the middle. Most truly senior developers in the $150k-$180k range.
darksim905 9y ago
Seriously? These are people just working on one piece of software. On what planet does someone who is maybe doing unit tests, or working only on one part of a code base, deserve or even demand such a high pay?
- jpetso 9y ago
  If your firm makes less money because it can't get enough developers to reach full capacity, then it makes sense to spend extra money on salaries to make even more money from customers. Assuming that this calculation applies to your firm, are you going to leave profit to others when you could instead have a win/win situation for everyone (business, employees, customers) instead?
- thephyber 9y ago
  Markets aren't made by how much something costs. They are made by the perceived value of things. In the same vein, people aren't paid based on the content of the work -- they are paid based on market rates. Doing mundane work like fulfilling unit test contracts doesn't sound that valuable until there is no one in your geographic area that can or will take that job {in that place, at that time, with the legal ability to work, etc}.

TheCowboy 9y ago

It's become cliche for companies to complain about a talent shortage while wage statistics don't rise in response. I've heard restaurant owners complain about not being able to attract and retain quality wait staff while they pay the tipped minimum wage (less than $3 per hour). This attitude has to change. If a company can make significantly more money by hiring someone, then they should be aggressively increasing wages to signal to the market that they are serious. It's basically refusing to participate in the free market, or a complete lack of understanding of how markets work. Business managers frequently act like they understand economics better than economists yet this attitude should telegraph a level of cluelessness that makes them unfit to manage a hiring process. Everyone wants to pay less and get more talent. If you can't afford to pay more then compete on other aspects---allow remote work, more flex-time, and so on. Try something different in your interviews. Offer apprenticeships. Sometimes it's not even a pure talent shortage that force increasing wages. In San Francisco the housing shortage and lack of support for new construction wipes out a lot of gains that come with higher salaries.

mabbo 9y ago
> In San Francisco the housing shortage and lack of support for new construction wipes out a lot of gains that come with higher salaries. You can even see that problem get worse as people leave. Fantastic dev I worked with moved from Seattle back to India. She said that yes, she made more money in Seattle, but cost of living was so low in Bangalore that she effectively made a lot more money there. Coupled with her family being closer, it made perfect sense.
- debacle 9y ago
  You can retire comfortably in many places in India on 1 year of a developer's salary in the US.
- huac 9y ago
  If you don't care about buying 'big ticket' items e.g. iPhones, MacBooks, VR, etc, - this is true. But these items don't change in price depending on where you are, and are likely much harder to buy as a result.
  - claudiulodro 9y ago
    Would you rather own a house and a Xiaomi phone or never be able to afford a house and own an iPhone? iPhones are cool, but houses are cooler.
    - snewk 9y ago
      and houses in seattle are a lot 'cooler' than houses in bangalore
      - phinnaeus 9y ago
        Not if they actually build houses with A/C in Bangalore. (mostly joking)
      - livingparadox 9y ago
        Does it matter if the house in seattle is cooler if you're never going to be able to buy it?
    - toomanybeersies 9y ago
      Some of us have no desire to actually own a house, as far as a home goes. I'm no opposed to buying a house for investment, but have no real urge to live in my own house.
      - 9y ago
ben_jones 9y ago
The problem is companies like this are constantly rewarded by young drop-outs and fresh grads who have faced adversity entering the job market and will take any job. These people are living with their parents and have never been truly employed. They will take these jobs and work their butts off, validating these same managerial processes. You don't give them enough credit. This process works for them sometimes. And sometimes is evidently enough.
- TheCowboy 9y ago
  I think this arguably reinforces my point if a company has a process that works yet they complain about a talent shortage. Part of this complaining can be an attempt to influence/distort government policy, justify a flawed or exploitative hiring process, or managing who to blame when they miss a quota. I definitely agree that what you said is part of reality for some companies, which is why I think it's important to aggressively point out that there are solutions when the "skill shortage" is brought up. Additionally, if underpaying younger talent is prevalent, then all the more reason a company should offer competitive salaries to recent graduates when faced with a shortage. They'd start booking some easy wins.
- rhizome 9y ago
  It would seem at least a little disingenuous for a company to hire new grads who will take any job and then turn around to complain about skills shortage. I'm not saying that grads don't ever have skills, but if the company tends to hire desperate noobs then they aren't (or are just barely) shopping for the skills they say they need.
mahyarm 9y ago
People complain about their costs going up, just like most people complain about their rent / housing costs going up.

JOnAgain 9y ago

It's frustrating. A huge number of top grads move to the US when they graduate for 30-50% higher pay, before exchange rate. Even Amazon will offer you 50% more to move to the US vs. Toronto.

ghettoCoder 9y ago
How is this Amazon's fault? Maybe if Canadian companies weren't such tightwads they would have a better success rate in hiring top talent. And I say this as a Canadian.
- bllguo 9y ago
  confused how you read any of these comments as bashing amazon and excusing canadian companies
  - ghettoCoder 9y ago
    I didn't read it as you bashing Amazon. I read as Amazon is "stealing" all the talent by offering better wages, etc...

debacle 9y ago

I don't think you can make an apples to apples comparison of salaries between Canada in the US.

chrshawkes 9y ago
Why not?
- xinsight 9y ago
  Health insurance amakes an apples-to-apples comparison difficult.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Sure, but even if you count $1K a month for health insurance, it's still hardly competitive. Even at $2K they're only starting to get close. And from what I see, $120K CAD is basically the absolute top you're going to get as a very experienced dev.
    - david-gpu 9y ago
      I think that depends on the specific skillset they are looking for. In the systems software industry $120K CAD total compensation is about half of what a Senior Staff makes based on what I've seen. Generally speaking, people need to start being more proactive asking for raises and switching to higher paying jobs if we want compensation in the GTA job market to improve.
      - mattm 9y ago
        This is part of the problem. Canadians are generally more complacent and have a lower tolerance for conflict compared to Americans from what I've seen. (I'm Canadian)
    - sdm 9y ago
      I can't speak for other regions, but for Vancouver $120k CAD is about the upper end of the middle. Most truly senior developers in the $150k-$180k range.

darksim905 9y ago

Seriously? These are people just working on one piece of software. On what planet does someone who is maybe doing unit tests, or working only on one part of a code base, deserve or even demand such a high pay?

jpetso 9y ago
If your firm makes less money because it can't get enough developers to reach full capacity, then it makes sense to spend extra money on salaries to make even more money from customers. Assuming that this calculation applies to your firm, are you going to leave profit to others when you could instead have a win/win situation for everyone (business, employees, customers) instead?
thephyber 9y ago
Markets aren't made by how much something costs. They are made by the perceived value of things. In the same vein, people aren't paid based on the content of the work -- they are paid based on market rates. Doing mundane work like fulfilling unit test contracts doesn't sound that valuable until there is no one in your geographic area that can or will take that job {in that place, at that time, with the legal ability to work, etc}.