How Come So Many US Tech Workers Are Applying For Jobs In Canada?

Tech community obsession with ice hockey? Fried beaver tails with maple syrup? Tim Horton's donuts? The allure of coding in below zero weather? Or maybe Donald Trump's election and its impact on tech workers not from white Caucasian backgrounds? JL


Rani Molla reports Re/code:

"Normally, we see zero to very small numbers of engineers applying to technical roles in Canada.”A survey of 42 Canadian startups showed that nearly half saw a notable increase in applications from the U.S. this year. U.S. tech companies are interview(ing) fewer international candidates (though) they rely on international talent, and now it seems like they could be losing domestic talent as well.

Canadian tech companies have seen an upswell in U.S. job applicants following last year’s U.S. presidential election, according to a recent questionnaire.

A survey of 42 Canadian startups showed that nearly half saw a notable increase in applications from the U.S. this year, according to Toronto-based tech innovation hub MaRS. The tech accelerator queried startups in its network that had over $1 million in annual revenue and that were likely to have U.S. exposure.

While the respondents weren’t certain of the exact reason, the post-election influx suggests politics could be causing U.S. tech talent to look north. Of course, Canada also has a strong and growing tech sector that could be drawing Americans on its own.

“Engineers wanting to immigrate to Canada from places like India are normal, but I’ve never seen anything close to the numbers of candidates from the U.S.” said Roy Pereira, CEO of automated virtual assistant company Zoom.ai. “Normally, we see zero to very small numbers of engineers applying to technical roles in Canada.”

A recent Zoom.ai full-stack software engineer posting garnered over a hundred applicants, 31 percent of whom were from the U.S.

Canadian e-commerce company Shopify saw more U.S. applications in the first quarter of 2017 than in all of 2016. February alone had the highest number of U.S. job seekers than had applied in a year.

Eighty-five percent of applicants for business development roles at data and drug discovery company Cyclica are U.S. based, up from 35 percent last year.

At Figure 1, a social networking service for health-care professionals, the proportion of U.S. applicants for a senior-level role this year was twice what it was for a similar position last year. U.S. workers made up 20 percent of total applicants for the job this year.

Earlier this year, a study by tech job platform Hired found that U.S. tech companies are asking to interview fewer international candidates. Lots of U.S. tech companies rely on international talent and now it seems like they could be losing domestic talent as well.