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Montreal companies have absolutely no problem hiring programmers who don't speak French (I'm the sole anglophone at my company, and they found me). The real lo
by sedachv 16y ago
Montreal companies have absolutely no problem hiring programmers who don't speak French (I'm the sole anglophone at my company, and they found me).
The real losers end up being the native Quebecers. There are really good programmers here working for pennies because they don't know enough English to move to or contract for companies in the Bay Area or NYC. This is true for a lot of other knowledge/creative professionals in Montreal as well.
If you look at Montreal neighborhoods and professions, you find that the ones where management and finance dominates are also the ones with mostly anglophones (of course Westmount dominates), and the ones with the highest incomes. The irony of francization is that it is creating an economic ghetto out of the native French speakers.
- olalonde 16y agoAnglophones having highest incomes in Quebec is an old myth. In fact, a recent report from Statistics Canada (StatsCan) shows that English-speakers have a lower median income than francophones with the same qualifications.[1] Furthermore, I highly doubt that the fact "you could be working in NYC if you wanted to" has any influence on your salary. Finally, even if what you stated was true regarding francization, it wouldn't be ironic at all. Francization isn't there to help out the economy, it's there to protect a culture. /rant :) [1] http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2010/09/quebec_anglo_incomes_lagging/ http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2010/09/quebec_anglo_incomes_lagg...
- sedachv 16y agoNote what the article states: "The majority of migrants to Quebec are English-speaking – 33 per cent of the anglophone population is made up of immigrants, compared to only 7 per cent of the French-speaking population – and inflows of foreign migrants contribute to higher poverty rates among anglophones." "A wealthy minority exists within the anglophone community, skewing their average income data upwards" It is this Westmount/West Island wealthy minority I'm referring to when I say you should look at occupation and income levels. There's no surprise blue-collar francophones earn more - that was the whole impetus behind the Quiet Revolution. Programmer salaries in NYC are about three times what they are in Montreal, while the cost of living is only about twice as high. Salaries in the US have a very real effect on Canadian ones - it's so easy to get a NAFTA visa that the US and Canada basically share a labor market of programmers.
- olalonde 16y agoYou seem to have a very distorted view of the job market in Montreal. Perhaps the company you're working at isn't very representative? I won't disagree that NY salaries are higher but 3 times higher? It's probably more around 1.1 times higher. I'm frequently getting contacted by recruiters. Here is a sample of an email I recently received: > Analyste-programmeur SHAREPOINT SR. [...] permanent temps plein et est situé à Montréal [...] salaire offert est entre 80000-85000$/an (selon le profil) + boni 20% > Directeur Technologique (architecture et Base de Données) - Montréal - 100000-120000$ > Formateur technique (automatisation, DCS, régulation) - Montréal - 80000-100000$ > Analyste d'affaire senior (projets web et applic. mobiles) - Montréal - 80-90K$ > Analyste soutien informatique (SGPCR, régression, acceptation, - Montréal - 50-60K$ > Directeur Centre de données (conn. mécanique et électrique) - Montréal -100-110K$ > Conseiller principal bureau projet (adj. PMO) (conn. et expér. AGILE) -Montréal -90-95K$ > Développeur Iphone (objective C) - Montréal - 65-70K$ > Développeur Iphone TEAM LEAD (objective C) - Montréal - 80-85K$ > Développeur PHP Backend - Montréal - 60-65K$ > Développeur SQL-BI (datawarehouse, .Net, CRM) - Montréal 65-75K$
- sedachv 16y agoJust last week I had a talk with someone who knows the NY job market very well. Senior developers are getting 160-240 thousand dollars. That's 3x the team lead or senior analyst salaries in that list.