When it comes to recruiting skilled workers from the tech industry, Canada is taking a special approach. Instead of money, the Canadian government is luring with security – and little bureaucracy.
Software engineer Sriram V. has been dreaming of moving to the neighboring country for a few weeks. “Vancouver, Toronto, British Columbia: There’s a lot of options, tech-wise.”
Born in India, he has been living and working for a company in the New York area for a few years. Mostly in the home office and very flexible. But his visa is tied to the company he can work for in the United States. And his partner, who came with him, cannot work there under the visa regulations.
Then Sriram hears about the invitation that Canada’s immigration minister, Sean Fraser, recently promoted at a tech conference in Toronto. “Imagine life in Canada,” he told the audience. “Not just for a few weeks, but potentially for a long time.”
Permanent right to stay beckons
The “Tech Talent Strategy” initiative aims to make it possible. With the program that has just started, the North American country is courting digital nomads from all over the world – and not just to travel across the country, as Fraser explains on the business channel Bloomberg: “You can get a Canadian work permit that might even get you on your way, to settle here permanently.”
The initiative initially enables tech talent to work remotely for their home employer from Canada for a maximum of six months without having to apply for a visa. Canada does not collect taxes during this period. The employees must continue to pay them in their home country as usual.
If you fall in love with life in Canada after this “trial course”, the recruitment program will open a second door for you. Fraser exults: “If the IT people have a job offer in Canada, they can just stay and work here for a few years and then they can decide whether they want to become permanent residents.” In the end, the big prize is not going to Canada for a few weeks, but getting a full work permit there.
Higher wages in the US, but more insecure jobs
Fraser openly admits: The initiative arises from the pressure to stay ahead of the tech development. The minister claims there is now more tech talent in the province of Ontario than in the San Francisco Bay area.
While the IT industry is booming in big cities like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, Canada as a whole is running away from a lot of tech talent. According to information from the personnel service provider “Randstad Canada”, the country loses almost one percent of its working population in this sector every year to the large neighboring country USA.
And there are financial reasons for that: While tech experts in Canada earn the equivalent of around 70,000 euros a year on average, they can get almost double that for their work in US hubs such as New York or San Francisco. However: In the USA, many tech companies from Google to Amazon laid off tens of thousands of employees at the beginning of the year.
Free health care
Employees like Sriram V. also appreciate the stability of Canada’s welfare system. “It’s attractive,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about your basic social insurance. You also don’t have the handcuffs of the immigration authorities around you all the time.”
Canadian citizens and permanent residents are entitled to free public health care. However, tech nomads who extend their stay beyond the first six months have to pay tax on their wages in Canada. A single worker there pays an average of 25.6 percent income tax this year.
Despite the horrendous rents and living costs in Canadian cities, the project is attractive for digital nomads. This also applies to IT specialists such as the quality manager Soumya J.: She is one of the first 10,000 applicants who were admitted as digital nomads in Canada via a bound US H1B work visa.
A win for everyone?
She successfully applied for a work permit in Canada from New Jersey. Compared to the US authorities, it was very easy, she enthuses. She was able to do everything independently on the computer. The officials in Canada were very helpful.
Now Soumya J. writes a lot of applications. “Even though I’ve sent out so many, no recruiter has called me back,” she says. “I’ll have to wait and see how it goes.”
It is unclear how US companies feel about such poaching campaigns by neighboring Canada. Canada’s immigration minister, Fraser, said everyone could win: “It’s going to be a big win for Canada, it’s going to be a big win for working people, and it could be a win for the US, which can keep its connection to tech talent . Because instead of looking for work on the other side of the world, they stay in North America.”