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by cmrdporcupine 525 days ago
Canada's points-based system already makes it pretty easy for the latter category to come here. To the point where people in our profession have highly depressed compensation packages when compared to the US because our job market is very much flooded with inbound foreign talent.

Domestic trained talent tends to leave for the US. Because under NAFTA it's trivial to do so.

Manual labour, yeah, that's another story. NAFTA doesn't grant free movement of unskilled labour at all.

1 comments

Are tech companies rapidly expanding in Canada to take advantage of all that cheap labor?
Every major US tech company has Canada-based hubs for sure. So much cheaper.
My understanding is that Canadian FAANG offices are staffed mostly with those who cannot (and often will never get) a US visa, plus the odd local who doesn't want to move to the US for personal or family reasons.
Not sure about Toronto, but from my anecdotal observation, people come to Vancouver because it's awesome, not because they couldn't get into the US. At least, I've never heard a single coworker say anything along the lines of "I wanted to work in [anywhere in US], but couldn't, so I came to Vancouver".
Don't forget about all the people waiting for their L-1.

(I've been in that boat myself, and every single person I worked with in the office in Canada is in US today.)

This is accurate.

Source: Canadian working in FAANG in Canada

Thanks for the corroboration. While replying to you, let me clarify my previous comment:

>those non-Canadians who cannot (and often will never get) a US visa

For a time there was a little bit of that. Some of the FAANGs in particular were growing their offices here significantly, and paid above the median for it.

Now there's a surplus of talent in the US, so no need.