9 ms·
The cheap labour pool as a consequence of the weak Canadian dollar certainly helps, alongside having identical time zones and nearly identical culture to the Un
by lucidone 7y ago
The cheap labour pool as a consequence of the weak Canadian dollar certainly helps, alongside having identical time zones and nearly identical culture to the United States. Lots of Canadian consultancies butter their bread with USD.
- sandworm101 7y ago>> nearly identical culture to the United States. Lol. Maybe a similar culture to some parts of California or Washington, and that is a stretch, but Vancouver is very very different than "the United States". Live in both for a while and all the little difference (the guns, health care, government, police, civil-military relations, the environment, land use, education etc) add up to markedly different approaches to life.
- tathougies 7y agoHave you been to Alberta? Vancouver is not representative of canada.
- kyriee 7y agoMaybe its Alberta that's not representative of Canada ;)
- sandworm101 7y agoYes. I have lived/worked in Alberta many years, and am scheduled to go back soon. But i didnt say Canada /= the united states. I said Vancouver /= the United states.
- earth_walker 7y agoIt seems you're insinuating that Alberta is somehow more (U.S.) 'American' than the rest of Canada. I have lived in Alberta for over ten years, and though culturally distinct from the rest of Canada (as is every other province I've spent time in) Alberta's brand of rugged individualist / conservatism is still very Canadian. And though we may look very different to the urbanites of GVRD (Vancouver and surrounding) and the GTA (Toronto and surrounding), you'll find many more similarities between us and those living in rural Canada with resource-based economies, like the people living in B.C.'s forestry-dependent areas, the northern prairies or NorthWest Ontario. The difference for us is that we have very vocal, oil-industry-controlled politicians and a population that is immediately suspicious of any time an easterner tries to tell us what to do. Sometimes the easiest way to see our distinctiveness is by contrast - immediately evident when crossing over to even the closest border states. I love Montana and its people, but boy do you know you're not in Canada anymore - roadways lined with advertisements; cops everywhere you look; huge rich/poor divides; razor wire, visible drug problems and ghettos in even the smallest cities; and a love of all things military. All that to say, there's far more to being Albertan than oil, guns and god, and those three things don't make us a 'murican.
- tathougies 7y agoNo I'm insinuating that the values the commenter encountered in vancouver vis a vis guns, police, armed conflict, etc are not representative of canada as a whole and change from province to province and even between say vancouver and the surrounding rural areas. Vancouver is especially different from the rest of canada than most canadian cities. Its like using Portland to characterize the entirety of America.
- sandworm101 7y agoAgreed. I lived in the us for five years, it was a shock. The big thing for me was the guns, the constant militarism. Albertans might own lots of guns but they don't take them to pizza hut. And cops everywhere. I was in seattle recently and counted 8 different TYPES of police car on a quick 4-block walk between buildings. Not car paint jobs, different types of police. ICE, fed, state, local, atf... America seems to have more police than not. Canada, all of canada, doesn't feel like that.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoStrongly disagree. The difference between somewhere like Vancouver and Seattle is much smaller than the difference between somewhere like San Francisco and Tulsa. Statement is plenty accurate.
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- blaser-waffle 7y agoI'm an American living in Canada and I'd agree with this. San Diego was far more different than Austin, TX, and considerably different than Ithaca, NY. I'm still legally a WA resident, and having done a lot of time around Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, and Vancouver, I can tell you there are a lot of similarities. Seattle doesn't have the Aberdeen Mall, but in terms of attitude there isn't anything you can't find in Seattle. Once you get out of the city, guns, religion, and skepticism of the urbanites is just as common as in the US -- standard Urban-Rural divide. Hell, even the "fly-over" provinces are conservative, just like in the US.
- goodcanadian 7y agoI, too, would accept "similar culture," but it is far from "nearly identical." I say this as a Canadian who lived in the United States for several years.
- criddell 7y agoIt's very, very similar north-south. Vancouver has more in common with Seattle than Halifax.
- krrrh 7y agoI think anyone who had spent time living outside of North America will recognize that the cultures of Canada and the US are indeed nearly identical. Especially in the context of this thread, which is about the workplace.
- angry_octet 7y agoWhoa definitely can't agree. For example, Canadians are much less likely to be rah rah about something they know doesn't work. And they don't have anywhere near the level of 'just world' philosophy. As a foreigner to both, I see massive differences.
- wenc 7y agoThe pool of technical talent is also pretty great. If you're in a non-primary market in the U.S. (non NYC/SF/Boston), my experience has been that you can hire comparable or better talent in Canadian cities for less the local U.S. median salary, especially in talent-starved markets within the U.S. It's an open secret that many Americans are somehow unaware of.
- jonathankoren 7y agoAlso with easier immigration, Canada’s talent pool will only get better. Already the US is losing people to Canada due to overly restrictive immigration laws. I’ve even heard immigration offices offering to help with Canadian immigration on the radio in the SF Bay https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2019/0304/Go-north-young-grad.-How-Canada-is-winning-over-international-students https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2019/0304/Go-north-young-g... https://movnorth.com/ https://movnorth.com/
- GhostVII 7y agoI think Canada is losing far more people to the US than the other way around, at least at the higher end of the market. Canadian salaries just aren't competitive at that level.
- wbl 7y agoWhy not?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thinkloop 7y agoThe US is the NBA, the stars definitely do go there. A pretty good life strategy is to work in the states from 30-45 while you're young and healthy, then come back to Canada for peace and safety to raise your family. I've seen a few people do that. I'm not sure it ends up being that bad for Canada. On the one hand they lose stars during their productive years, on the other hand they come back during their spending years with more money/knowledge/sophistication than they would have had.
- thinkingkong 7y agoFor way too long Canada has had this weird artificial market capture problem. The easier it is for us to break down those fake barriers, the better it is for everyone. Salaries are about to go up way more for the average employee. Simultaneously, any companies that were making money on labor price arbitrage are about to have a real tough time; Good riddance.
- thinkloop 7y agoWhich barriers?
- ttul 7y agoIf you get into a senior role at one of the big tech firms, pay matches the valley. For lesser roles, Canada is cheaper, but the gap is closing rapidly as talent runs dry.
- buzzkillington 7y agoSenior roles in SF/NY pay >600k in total comp. I was flat out told there are no such jobs in Canada two years back. Has that changed?
- halflings 7y agoWhat do you mean by "senior roles"? Something like a "Senior Software Engineer"? (or more like a Senior Staff SWE / director) Can guarantee Senior Software Engineers don't make >600K in SF.
- fulafel 7y agoHow would currency factor into the situation?