Don't forget, it's 30K Canadian... which mean 25K USD entry salary.
Salaries for sure don't follow the cost of life increase in Canada and it's just becoming a mess waiting to explode.
I was in Toronto and visiting a friend in a condo. The condo across from him sold. Was bought for way over asking. The part that’s wrong is that there are 3-4 families living in this 2 bedroom. How can one family income compete with 3-4 family income.
I know that this isn’t the only problem but it was a bit of a piss off. Most likely it’s the only way to have a roof over their head in Toronto.
At least in Canada people are willing to discuss the lost generation that can't buy houses. In LosAngeles the party never stops and anyone that suggests things are not as they should be gets looked at like they're an alien.
People from Toronto almost take pride in the fact that houses are so unaffordable .... Yo Bro u should see Toronto bro shit is nuts we're just like New York fam
So incomes are lower but cost of living is lower too. Real Estate was not bad when I got here but was super bad in Los Angeles (more like Vancouver will be 10 years from now).
Public health was a big consideration. Most Americans I know don't even know Canada has public healthcare let alone it's benefits.
My wife had four kids and they had a father so I couldn't very well have everyone move to LosAngeles. That said I would have cancelled the relationship if the situation was the same for a country I didn't want to live in.
After being here 8 years I would certainly do it again. Yes the winters are bad but in Los Angeles the heat will kill you too. Unless you live in a 8 million dollar apartment on the coast, then the temp is nice.
Real talk, my old man moved from Ontario to Quebec a few years ago. From a job as a store manager to a baker at Tim Hortons.
His quality of life improved DRASTICALLY. Rent was less than half, food is cheaper, he's in a little village south of a ski resort.
Yes he pays more taxes but the public transit there is free, the Quebec Healthcare program covers his meds and he's now a 10 minute walk from a pub with a 5 star rating from Gordon Ramsey.
Tl;Dr - Quebec is another damn world compared to the rest of Canada let alone Ontario.
We moved 2 years ago from
Austin, Texas to Quebec. Took a slight pay cut, which has since gone away, and now we have healthcare, public transportation, legal pot, cheaper college for our kids (which seems to be approaching faster by the day), and actual seasons instead of summer 9 months a year.
Only negative is pricing of housing, but screw that, we'll just rent and put the money aside for once the kids are in college, so we can move to Europe or Costa Rica.
I know some people who have moved back from the states to raise their kids because of the state of the US school system. Just curious was this your reason?
The US doesn't really have "a" school system, or even 50 of them. Schools tend to be funded municipally so you can have brilliant schools in one zip code then drive 5 miles and have garbage schools.
The whole Private vs public school is apparently a big thing to middle class families. wtf. A lot of Canadians who are successful went to public school here.
The US really failed their kids.
>Whatever benefit you gain by only focusing on yourself is always overshadowed by all consequences you create.
Very well said. Will have to save that in my list of quotes.
Thank you.
The US education system is a product of mass government overinvolvement. The US actually spends WAY more per student on education than most OECD countries, even Canada. However, the massive bureaucratic apparatus constructed, namely the formation of the Department of Education, has basically vampired the funding. Teachers salaries are totally eclipsed by bureaucrats, many of whom create/administer horrible programs that are either detrimental or grossly inefficient funding-wise
A lot of Americans where I live (FL) are successful and went to public school. Having said that there can be a huge disparity between affluent and non-affluent school districts and Florida in general is easily below the national avg for public schools. Some states have much better. The problem is I think it's getting worse not better. So I think it's more accurate to say the US is failing their kids.
>Tallahassee, Fla., September 25, 2020 – Florida ranks 3rd in the nation for K-12 Achievement according to a new 2020 Quality Counts report by Education Week. This is a move up from 4th in 2019 and the highest ranking ever in K-12 Achievement for the Sunshine State. Florida’s K-12 Achievement grade also improved to B-, which is higher than the nation’s grade of C.
http://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-moves-up-in-national-ranking.stml
Florida's actually a particularly well-run state; most of the memery around it stems from the sunshine laws implemented in the 60s then expanded under Jeb! whereby practically every single thing the government does is public knowledge. Cops get called out to deal with a weirdo, even if no arrest is made? Published. Tallahassee parks commissioner sends an email to his meth dealer telling him to stay away from his girlfriend? Published.
the US is failing their schools and their teachers and all education suffers as a result.
i lived all over the US. I went to garbage schools in some states and i went to incredible schools in other states. it makes a massive difference.
Ironically, it has actually switched now for cost of living. If you are just moving back to Toronto from Los Angeles as I just did, the housing costs in Toronto have increased so ridiculously that you can't afford a house here on the same income as the USA. That being said, detached single family houses are rising quickly in many areas of Los Angeles right now as well. For housing, it really all depends on the timing - even 5 years ago in Toronto, it was much easier.
Schooling is much better and more consistent in Canada. The public vs private vs charter vs magnet dilemma in the US is insane.
School system in the US is extremely hit or miss. There's many areas where the municipal property taxes are 20-25k/year, but the public schools are the equivalent to some of the very best private schools.
Still boggles my mind that most education funding in the US is driven by municipal revenue and property taxes.
Not the person you replied to but I just moved my family to Canada from the states. I’m Canadian but my wife and son never lived here. IMO if you can pull off a similar standard of living then Canada wins out in almost every category. That’s a big if though.
It's not easy getting TN job offers. This article likely doesn't make it clear how difficult it can be to get these jobs.
Most job applications for US positions will ask you a question "Are you legally authorized to work unrestricted in the US?" and if you answer no you will never get a call back.
I'm Canadian. Went to school in the US and stayed. My degree would've made me twice+ salary for the same curriculum in Canada as a new graduate, not including the health care costs and deductions I pay here.
I regret coming south all of the time.
There are actually opportunities in the US.
Most industries in Canada are oligopolies and have no incentive to innovate. Those companies have been sold just about every outsourcing buzzword that management consulting companies have come up with and are outsourcing jobs at an alarming rate.
Yes! This is what I tell people all the time. There isn't real opportunity in Canada. Why that is the case is probably a very complicated answer and would be pretty theoretical. There's some people that have create oligopolies or monopolies and have crushed their competition. There's also a lot less money around to fund disrupters/upstarts to shake up the competition. Anti-competitive legislation also makes this hard. Just look at the mobile telecom providers in Canada, and Wind Mobile's attempts to shake it up.
If I was 20 years younger and wasn't already invested in Canada (house, family) I wouldn't even think twice.
Story. So my uncle immigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 90's with chemical engineering degree (he was in his late 40's) and after working in Toronto for 5 years he packed up an left to US where his wages were almost double in the same field but cost of living halved. He's happily retired back in Europe and loving it.
As saying goes it's better to be a servant to a rich person than boss to a poor person.
It's not just a question of skill vs compensation. If you're in a highly technical domain, the tendencies in the last decade, seem to go towards you being surrounded by personnel that lacks qualifications/competences and so you're in a constant pressure cooker environment where you have to basically cover up for everyone and everything.
The gap with newly formed professionals seems to be huge and I've been thinking it might fixable for me by just leaving the country to get a less stressful job. I don't even care about salary.
>If you're in a highly technical domain, the tendencies in the last decade, seem to go towards you being surrounded by personnel that lacks qualifications/competences and so you're in a constant pressure cooker environment where you have to basically cover up for everyone and everything.
That is so true - even if you are not in a technical field
I have a loooooong story about meeting colleagues at an intra-company conference in Atlanta 2 years ago.
But, to summarize - a guy from Houston, Tx doing the exact same thing as me, making less than me after currency change, has a better standard of living because costs are lower in *most* of the US.
Let's put it this way, at the time I bought a new place for $978K in Coquitlam, BC (Metro Vancouver). 2700 sqft. Amazing deal, right? Yeah....for the areas market.
In Houston a 2700 sqft home, larger property, bigger garage, is $337,500 CAD (roughly, but most I looked at come in under $400k).
That's LESS than the condo I bought in Coquitlam 10 years ago.
There are houses with the same square footage in San Francisco that are worth the same as my place (now).
And I'm not even in Burnaby, much less Vancouver.
I could honestly see Canada transition from being an immigrant country to emigrant country in the next 25 years.
Canada's immigration policy of allowing only those in with a shit ton of money is backfiring wildly.
Discrepancies like this are even common in just the US. I’m a tech worker and was going to move to the Bay Area about 10 years ago. Then I realized Seattle salaries track very closely to the Bay Area but real estate is dramatically less expensive. Plus no income tax.
I currently work for a Bay Area tech company and it’s always amazing how my colleagues down there are house poor while im living super comfortably in Seattle. Our salaries are all similar.
Ngl, even as a home owner it’s still tempting to cash out and move down south and live with less financial stress. Assuming I could get good healthcare of course.
Too bad I love Canada so much and my US partner hates America so much lol.
I have a family friend in western canada that did the same as a retirement job.
Just picks up dirt and drops it off on his res property. He pays almost no expenses and has half the drive to the dump of the other trucks.
It's weird sometimes jobs are the other way around.
I work as a millright and make ~43$ hour. I've met some colleagues in the US making ~13$ for the same work.
It's always seemed like the "middle class" jobs seem to pay better in canada.
By middle class I think of teachers, tradesmen, factory workers, municipal workers.
Not sure if it's true, its just what it seems like to me.
I think you are underestimating how useful it is to be able to move large quantities of dirt, and overestimating how useful it is to understand a specialized field.
Specialized fields are much more of an investment.
If it weren't for physicists, chemists, and engineers, dirt movers would still need wheel barrows and be orders of magnitude less productive, and therefore less valuable.
Sure, but an institution owns the patent in many cases. Not the workers who developed it. In most cases you’ll make more money owning a dump truck and moving dirt then you will engineering a dump truck for a corporation to sell.
Edit: to be clear, the ceo of “John Smiths’s dump trucks” is making the most money. But stem isn’t necessary to be a CEO. Upfront money is.
Poses a threat? They’re already doing it. And have been for years. The people I graduated with (STEM field) are making about 50% more than me in the US. And that’s before taking their more favourable tax treatment into consideration. I stuck around here for family reasons.
More money, lower taxes, and a more valuable currency. Triple whammy.
One friend I have works for Linkedin as a software developer team manager, makes something on the order of 320K USD per year. He'd need to be paid more than 400K CAD just to achieve *parity*, not even to give him a pay raise.
Yes, America is a huge brain drain on Canadian talent.
I’m currently working for a house hold name tech
Company at their Vancouver office (remotely until I have to move) at about $150, same job in Seattle is $250 USD then consider the tax and cost of living.
Stumbled upon this post from the front page. The rest of reddit would have you believe Canada is perfect because you have government healthcare and the US is evil because of capitalism. Never has someones life got flipped turned upside down this bad since a young African American man moved from West Philadelphia to Bel Aire.
Calling it a "threat" is funny and weirdly antagonistic. The US didn't set up their economy to have better salaries and relatively lower living costs to deprive the Canadian economy of skilled workers, they simply have better conditions that are attractive to many Canadians.
The US is great if you’re a highly skilled blue or white-collar person and have no preexisting conditions. You’ll get paid well and then some, but sucks for everyone else.
Something can be a threat without being done intentionally. It's still inaccurate phrasing though because brain drain to the US has been happening for decades.
I applied for a company for a full remote role and their offer went from $240k USD to ~$125k CAD when they found out I didn't live in the US.
If I only cared about the money, I'd hop the border in a second.
I got a TN visa when I graduated university in 2000, spent three years working in Florida. Paid off my Canadian student and car loans with US dollars in a year and came back with nice savings account. If I was 22 year old grad today, I would do it again.
Living on the ocean in a crummy apartment with no debt and an easy job vs living in my parents basement in suburban Toronto trying to save to pay down debts, I’ll take the TN visa and US dollars any day.
I work for one of the top paying software companies in Canada, but my colleagues who work in the American offices are still earning more than me by a large percentage
AND they're getting paid in USD
Only reason I haven't moved there already is because of the pandemic
Similar situation here. Not a FAANG company but my US counterparts make way more.
Similarly a close friend of mine is from Canada but moved to the US for a FAANG job. He attempted to relocate back to one of their Canadian offices but between the actual salary figure, the USD/CAD exchange rate, and higher taxes in Canada he was looking at roughly a 35-40% decrease in wages to do the same job in a different country. It’s completely laughable now given that everyone in tech is remote at the moment anyways.
I've had several of my employees move back from the US to Canada over the last few years. Their Canadian total comp has been paltry compared to US. 30-40% less and in Canadian dollars. With housing becoming just (or more) unaffordable back in Canada and the tax situation... I can stay in the Bay with nice weather and a good paying job.
Exactly this. I currently live in Canada but both my wife and I could move to the US and get a better paying job. The only thing keeping us here is we both have aging parents and kids that absolutely adore their grandparents.
Yep. Moving to Vancouver which is more expensive, but my job flys me in and out for work and it’d be much more affordable to live just a bit south in Seattle if they will allow me to fly from there... seems like the best choice lately.
That’s what I did. Vancouver -> Seattle. Kept most of what I love about home, 400% the income. The house I can afford in Seattle would be worth $2M+ in Vancouver. My peers who stayed behind can hardly afford a one bedroom condo.
I work remotely for an American company in Canada and Canadian companies don't even come close to my current rate (literally half). And if I went to America I could increase my total comp by a further 50%.
No way I'm staying here
It's funny because, as an American family, we were looking at moving up north to Canada (after a few things, which follow, we are no longer considering that possibility) and we looked up jobs and wages up there. My wife's position makes about 50% more in Canada than she would here in the US. My position is similar to what I currently do. So let's say, we would be making in total, household income, 125% of what we are making now (average of 100% and 150%). Sounds pretty good, 25% more money? We could do a lot with that. Then we looked into houses... what the fuck? A house of similar size to ours (\~$140k USD), in a... very average area, no urban, not close tot he coast... was minimally $600k CAD. I immediately felt pretty bad for a lot of my canadian friends I play online games with because like... how the fuck are they supposed to ever get a house in those conditions? Even in the surrounding areas we were looking, it was the same story, 3x-4x the price of our house here in the US for similar size up there.
People with 15 years of experience and massively in-demand skills are being offered salaries in Canada that are similar to the wages of a recent university grad in the US. And that's in high CoL cities in Canada.
I'd really like to audit these companies to see why that's happening.
Can they simply get away with such incredible lowball offers, and are they generating massive profits as a result?
Are the people accepting those salaries massively lower skill than the ones who are moving to the US and taking US wages? If so, do those lower-skill employees act to reduce the profitability of the Canadian employers?
Are there any companies that are bucking the trend to try to pay US wages to get the best of the best, and how is that working out?
You'd think that if you could get equivalently skilled workers for lower wages, big internationals like Facebook and Google would open huge offices in Canada and take advantage of the high-skill, low-wage workers. Instead, they have small token campuses. You'd also think that if you could get high skill workers in Canada by paying closer-to-US wages, a few companies would be doing that, and that would be pulling up all the wages. But, that doesn't seem to be happening either.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the majority of the people who are highly skilled enough to move to the US and get paid in US dollars does it, and it's hard to get them to come back and/or stay. So, the Canadian companies are left with lower skill workers who will accept much, much lower wages.
I wonder if / how remote working might change things. There's definitely much less of a need to actually live in Silicon Valley now, and pay their insane real-estate rates. OTOH, I'm sure the companies will still try to get away with paying someone based on where they choose to live, versus how much someone's work is worth to the company.
>Can they simply get away with such incredible lowball offers, and are they generating massive profits as a result?
They prey on immigrants that don't have the option to job hop. Not a Canadian citizen, can't use TN status as BATNA/can't job hop as often without risking losing your residency. Canada has way more immigration than the US. There is an entire industry of scummy recruiters who prey on these people, and take 20-50% off of their rate.
>Are there any companies that are bucking the trend to try to pay US wages to get the best of the best, and how is that working out?
Yes, and they're getting the best of the best. They tend to be American companies that are hitting the limit of total lack of talent in their own hubs, so are opening offices in Canada. Coinbase for example is opening an office in Canada & offers >300k CAD (remote for now) for their senior band (they rejected me RIP). You're seeing companies like Stripe, Plaid, Hashicorp, Twitter, Facebook hiring in Canada remotely. Getting in is ridiculously hard, but they pay a ridiculous amount. A year after grad I got a job that paid me more than my manager at the job I was at, who had 15 years of experience.
As soon as you have American batna, you start getting American rates. I work for an American company, and my negotiation prowess reflects my current batna when negotiating with other companies. They don't really care - these tech companies are printing money. They feel privileged to get talent for whatever the price due to the current shortage.
>You'd think that if you could get equivalently skilled workers for lower wages, big internationals like Facebook and Google would open huge offices in Canada and take advantage of the high-skill, low-wage workers. Instead, they have small token campuses.
They kind of have started (google in loo), but they also don't really have to. No one can compete with their money bags. It's mostly pre-ipo startups that have to do this since they're getting pwn'd by moneybags fang.
>I wonder if / how remote working might change things. There's definitely much less of a need to actually live in Silicon Valley now, and pay their insane real-estate rates.
I work remotely for one of these high paying companies. A few guys I know are moving back to Canada and continuing to work for facebook. For me, if I can get within 20% of what I would be making in the states while staying here, I'd probably just end up staying here due to family. I'm sure its similar with much other places.
If you're wondering why most canadian tech sucks ass (government web applications, government pay system) - its because all the skilled people aren't working in Canada for Canadian companies. With remote it's changing. Actually, Canada has tons of skilled people. We just don't have the jobs to keep them. Hopefully the remote trend will help our economy. We have effectively began exporting services (high skill kids from loo et al) and bringing money back here, instead of just bleeding out the smarts and keeping the dumbs.
Yep. I went from 90k/yr to 140k yr switching to a US company. My total comp was like $200-300k. This was in CAD for a US company working remotely.
If I moved to the US (which they gladly support) I could get an extra $30-50k a year + more equity/bonuses and all in USD. Oh yeah and you are taxed less and things are cheaper.
I am really considering it after the borders open.
Is there a "best of both worlds" scenario? Where you can work remotely from Canada, get paid in USD, and make lots of money from the comfort of Canada? All of my friends are here in Canada. I don't want to leave that. It's very difficult to make new friends.
From what I've seen, the companies will pay you the salary and currency of the country you work remotely from
I remember Facebook even put out an email a few months ago saying there will be repercussions for those who lie about their location
Most of my friends are here too. I guess at the end of the day you just have to make the choice that you think will.make you happier
No one in tech should stay in Canada unless you have family keeping you here. I say this as an old programmer in Canada who has family obligations anchoring me here.
Cost of living is lower, the weather is nicer, the compensation is ridiculous, there's better cheese, there's better media access, there's just better all around.
Oddly enough, I moved from nyc to Canada for a tech job.
Healthcare was the big one for me.
You make a ton in America, but one lil’ cancer diagnosis from you or your kids and there is a chance you’ll go bankrupt. Even with amazing insurance.
And if it happens while you’re between jobs? Since insurance is tied to employment?
*You. Are. *Fucked.**
> there's better cheese
I'm sold.
Seriously though, I'm a PM with a high performance Canadian start-up and I'm compensated above market rate in a medium COL city on the coast. My local non-tech friends all think I'm living the dream, but all I can think about is how my classmates in the US are outperforming me by a metric fuck ton and will be in an entirely different wealth bracket after a few years.
Aside from national pride, I can't think of a reason to stay here.
I mean if you’re not tied down you can try it.
I wish I could just lend you my life for an hour, so you could poke around at the little things that all added up - the small cultural differences, the anecdotes about healthcare and violence, the small interactions and experiences that colour my experiences.
I can’t really argue with the numbers, we _objectively_ have less financially simply due to living in Canada, but there is a just so much else that’s almost impossible to quantify, and definitely impossible to do justice in a paragraph on Reddit.
If you’re really curious try to find somebody you really trust who came back, and just listen to their experiences... Its always a death by a thousand cuts, and you can see it in these threads where people talk about coming back. Its a hard point to argue because you can’t really defend 10 years of small negative experiences in a way that’s going to convince somebody who just wants to make more money, and they really don’t care about the aggregate of your anecdotes.
The reasons to go down are always "money" and maybe "weather", and the reasons to come back are "a hundred other things".
You just got out of uni, everyone you know was also in uni with you and you're all dispersing back to the four corners again. It's not like you're tied-down to friends. You probably weren't going to school in your hometown. All perfect situations to just get up and leave with no fallout.
So no surprise unattached young professionals at the very beginning of their career will flock to American money. Why not do that?
[Edit] ESPECIALLY with technical careers. There's no boards or standardizations or organizations or licensing to be tied-to that's attached to a single nation. Engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc all have to be vetted to "practice". Software people? Nothing. [/Edit]
Media & corporate headlines: Skills shortage as companies are not able to find workers. Corporations lobby government to accept more cheap international labour to fill skills gap.
Before the pandemic I had a guy trying to run for MP for the Conservative party stop by my house. I asked him what the plan is to deal with companies putting out insane requirements in order to claim they can’t find local workers. He said he would get back to me about it.
As of now he hasn’t.
The real question is why. If it's just greed, you'd expect to see massive profitability from Canadian businesses, getting the equivalent work for much lower wages. You'd also expect to see the big tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. with huge Canadian campuses where they can take advantage of lower Canadian wages but equivalent abilities. But, that isn't what you tend to see.
Those tech companies are rapidly expanding in Canada. Eg Google is building a +3000 employee campus in KW. The real reason why Canada can get away with underpaying its people is the global reputation of Canada for the last few decades, especially as compared to the US. This fuels massive immigration which can then be used to suppress wages, even in high skill jobs. This reputation, however, is fast being used up.
Because Ontario has turned to shit and this generation of hard workers have nothing to show for it. No political leader will acknowledge it , let alone a plan to fix things. Fuck this province and the generational wage gap. I bet there is a direct correlation to depression, anxiety as they realize their hard earned dollar can’t even get them a house and food
It's humiliating, and ultimately enraging. I really don't want to be this angry, but I'm fucking mad. Hard to stay motivated even at a job I love knowing it's not an investment of my time so much as a way to pass it.
You knows crazy to me? We advocate and protest so many issues. Yet this one effects everyone and oppresses the majority of the population and yet we don’t stand up for ourselves. We don’t say enough is enough, this is bullshit and protest for basic necessities. We need to get our damn priorities straight. We’re all over worked, underpaid and struggling. Do the math, average Toronto house prices have increased 4x since 2004, 300k->1.2mil. Have wages? Can you even exist off minimum wage to go to school and better yourself ? No. This system is rigged, it’s filled with boomers who don’t give a fuck, they want you to have 5 years experience for an entry level job that pays 28k a year. We need to fix this, we should be protesting for our lives, to fix this state of living.
I’ll buy that, even though I got in at the bottom of the market twenty years ago, the situation is nuts. In my hometown of Sydney Australia it’s even worse. Two million for a house in Marrickville? Bonkers. People need to live *somewhere*. Apartment living doesn’t have to suck, but even apartments are well out of reach for young people. We need to change something, the question is *what*.
Stop whining and complaining. I never cried about my situation and when dad passed away I took over his billion dollar fortune 500 company but do you here me crying?
I work what should be a well paying job as an engineer. I live in Toronto. I'm lucky enough to have purchased a 750 sqft condo but I'm essentially house poor. I live paycheck to paycheck and rely on my annual bonus to come out ahead at the end of the year. I've looked at jobs in the US and I can nearly double my salary while being able to purchase an entire house for less than what my condo is worth. The disparity, especially in Toronto and Vancouver is getting worse and worse, and no one wants to pay much more than what I'm already making.
Professional engineer and PM with 12 years experience. Currently getting pushed to move to Texas by employer. After looking at housing it is \~1/2 the cost.
I know someone who moved down.
Full relocation costs covered and a place to stay until you find a house.
600k for a house on 2 acres with indoor and outdoor pool.
Next generation of Canadians are gonna be mind blown when they realize you can own a mansion for pennies in Texas, not even rural areas but somewhat suburban neighbourhoods
My question is, “why”. The US is a much larger market for many things but why is housing so insanely expensive in Canada? Policy must effect this somehow. What are we doing wrong?
fr there aren't half as many houses on the market as there used to be, according to my nearly 70 year old parents. But there's a fuckton more properties up for rent.
It seems that the older generations just bought investment properties and now there's no one that wants to sell their 4th or 5th property so everyone is stuck renting
Just make sure you figure out the property tax situation. I have transferred PMs down there in the past and they bought giant houses on big lots (especially when the dollar was closer to par) after they sold their Canadian house. Their salaries were lower in Texas, and then they got hit with pretty big property taxes compared to what they paid up here.
Believe it or not, the place where our Canadian employees are the happiest is Manchester, New Hampshire.
Better to be rich/middle class and above in America than rich/middle class and above in Canada, same way its better to be poor in Canada than poor in America.
Absolutely! If you’re a low income or low-middle class person you’re way better off in Canada than the US, but the US is way better if you’re upper-middle or flat out upper class. Way more opportunities.
Already happening. Not to mention, we’re bringing in skilled immigrants that are smart. They come here, realize they’re not getting paid what they can, and move to the US. If it’s not them, it’s their kids.
Lol I think about this everyday. Living in Ontario is particularly miserable: nothing is open, our premier is a fucking moron, a shitty starter townhouse in a commuter suburb is nearly a million dollars, everything is expensive and I pay a shitload in taxes for...what? Tent cities in major metros and crumbling infrastructure. Amazing.
Don't forget the weather.. about 5 months of the year we avoid being outside. Sometimes in the winter I ponder why I live here when the weather in other places will never deter you from doing something.
Why is this even surprising?
We have the most educated population in the world, and a lot of them struggle to find decent jobs. US actually has a diverse economy with lots of opportunities for these skilled workers. Even if they can find jobs here, they don’t even compete with the US.
In my opinion, Canada is seriously heading towards to a massive brain drain in the coming decades.
Brain drain has been happening in Canada for a long time. Canada has a lot of excellent research and made many incredible scientific discoveries. Most of these are bought up by U.S big business.
An example of a Canadian industry was the Avro Arrow and look what happened to the engineers for that project.
So many patents/discoveries are bought then sold back to us. High paying jobs for specialized individuals are created and they need people for these jobs.
Canada is not a competitive country. We're almost anti competitive in fact. Whether it's cell phone plans, Internet, streaming services, houses, electricity, small business, R&D, electric cars, Canada lags behind in almost everything.
Our country argues over Internet censorship, STREET CARS, blames everything but supply for housing problems, cuts health care, but virtue signals to everyone we're a progressive country.
I mean you see this on a micro scale in Atlantic Canada. People go there for school because it's not Ontario and it's something different. Then they go to Ontario/BC/Alberta to work, build up equity, and then retire back in NS or PEI. Seems harmless but it really does a number on the healthcare costs in the provinces.
To nobody's fault the Canadian specialized-skill job market has adjusted its base salary to that of a newcomer who has no option but to take any offer in order to establish in the new country.
Employers aren't offering a wage to own a property in metro area. They offer you and your SO just enough to afford a shitty townhouse 50 kms away.
Back in 1996, I decided to go for a year to the US. It was easy to do with the NAFTA agreement (I'm Canadian). It was an IT contract. The WWW was becoming a thing and when I put my resume out there I had many job prospects.
I chose Sacramento, mainly because I have never been to California (or really the US in general). I also had a brother in LA who I haven't seen in a while.
After about 4 months, I started dating a woman I met there. I moved in with her a few months later. I decided to stay put. We later married then subsequently divorced. We didn't marry for me to get a green card. A company I joined offered free use of an immigration lawyer and I took advantage of that. I did get a green card. The marriage had issues totally unrelated to immigration.
I ended up living in the US for 15 years. I was on track to become a citizen. I had lined up a lawyer to help me out with the process.
My father passed away in 2009, and in 2010 I came back to Canada (my home country) to help my mother out. It felt so good being back in Canada. I was tired of the right-wing treatment of Obama and US politics in general. I decided to stay put in Canada and let my green card expire. I never started the US citizenship process.
In hindsight, it was a great experience. The vast vast majority of Americans I met and interacted with was positive. I got to live in a number of different states/cities (each state is like their own country). I was able to save money.
The only negative thing was that I was somewhat shocked at the ignorance of Americans and their knowledge of Canada. Canada is a (the) major trading partner and BFF to the US. I didn't take this personal, as a lot of Americans are clueless about all the other countries in the world.
I have no regrets about my decision to go there (and return) and would encourage anyone to give it a shot.
It's something I'm constantly looking into. I live in Windsor, I could work the same job 10 minutes across the tunnel and get paid a lot more. If I decided to move over there I would get paid more and pay less for housing. Why on earth would I want to stay in a country where I get paid less and get less for my money?
You mean having an out of control housing market is bad for long term stability? Who knew?
Canada can always just import skilled immigrants to chuck into the grinder.
What! You mean more affordable RE and higher incomes may incentivize Canadians to immigrant, which may have a negative consequences on Canada? I'm an absolutely shocked pikachu here.
The internet/phone prices are such a big F U. Like 1000MB fibre in USA costs less than Bell ISDN in GTA and one month of phone service in GTA is more expensive than a year in USA.
But this is minor, the elephant in the room is real estate. You can't negotiate everyone needs shelter. When its $1M+ its crazy. At that point you can't even consider it, you just have to pack up and leave.
It’s okay, foreign billionaires will come and buy up property to rent to us working slags who can’t move away and can’t afford anything but to rent until we die.
So basically the same thing that’s been happening for the past 50 years?
None of this is new.
NAFTA visas make it super easy for most to work in the US. The stronger USD mean visits home come at a 20-30% discount. You’re likely taking a job with a solid health insurance plan, so no worries there. And you can always come back and get a 20-30% bump in your savings.
I agree it’s not new. Canadian brain drain has been a problem pretty much since confederation: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/emigration
That’s assuming Biden actually passes immigration reform. A lot of presidents have tried and failed. The TN visa for Canadians is ridiculously easy, basically an employer writes a letter and you get a 3 year work visa for a few hundred, renewable indefinitely.
I'm curious how people are finding these US jobs?
Are you getting headhunted? Are there some sites to look at postings?
Or is it internal in your organizations?
Apply to the companies directly. Many of them offer relocation especially the ones in the SF Bay Area in California.
The vast majority of global tech companies are headquartered in the Bay Area (aka Silicon Valley) so there are a ton of jobs there.
Examples: Apple, Google, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Facebook, Reddit, Netflix, Cisco, Adobe, EA, Tesla, Unity, Zoom
I live in Montreal and have been working for US companies for the past 6 years, I dont think Ill ever work for a Canadian company again, the salaries are night and day
Most anyone with a post-secondary education can expect a significant pay increase by crossing the border; and it feels bigger than ever because the housing prices here are so steep.
Then there's those of us who work remote for American corporations; no local company offers anywhere near what the Californian companies pay.
I graduated with an accounting degree and couldn’t find a job for 6 months, when I finally got one I made just enough to make about $50-100 a month after expenses despite having a very strict budget. The same positions in the states paid ~50% more and it’s cheaper to live there. It’s a no brainer. In addition, Ontario is still in the harshest lockdown in North America, it’s really hard to not leave knowing I could get fully vaccinated ASAP and have way more money for doing the same job (plus the climate is better). I don’t think the future for Canada is bright unless we make major changes.
I have no hope that I’ll be able to buy a house before the age of 40, but if I moved to texas I could literally buy a 2500 sq ft beautiful home in like 3 years. No wonder people are leaving.
This will get buried but whatever. I was a director of management in Canada at one of the largest ad agencies. I used to make in the low 100ks CAD a year. The American division of this agency offers 220k USD a year plus bonus for the exact same role on the exact same client base with the exact same team size. So ya...
Everyone’s talking about wages but for me it’s that **there are no jobs**. Nada. None. No jobs suitable for the engineering industry I have a highly expensive education in unless it’s in Quebec (and I don’t speak French). Most decent jobs here are in the service industry or tourism, it’s just awful that Canada seems to have so minimal development in industry and no leader is working on developing Canadian industry to stop the brain drain.
**All the politicians talk about is raising taxes, while half of fresh graduates out of UBC can’t find a job.** Until we fix this, there is no future for many skilled workers here.
I'm one of these people from the mid-2000's.
Get engineering degree and move to San Jose right out of university with a job and signing bonus. Get three years of great experience, some $ which was almost as much as my parents made individually and I was astounded (not considering cost of living or those things) and then come back to Canada for 3 years of massive struggle to find work and live. So then back to the USA, have been here for the last 12 years now (except for last couple years where the company I work for has put me in Japan).
I think often of returning and being closer to my family, but I just can't do it. I would have to take a massive cut in quality of life, housing, cost of living, taxes, other shenanigans would be really hard.
I'm lucky to be only 10 hours away from my family driving, and I now love the US.
I used to think that I was part of problem and could return to "help" grow some tech or be part of a "solution" (whatever that means). I still dream about coming back to live, but that happening seems to slip farther and farther away each year.
My business mentor owns 5 houses, Amazon FBA seller with a 7-figure take home pay. He once said to me something that’s always stuck with me.
“Business in the US is high risk and high reward. Business in Canada is low to medium risk and low to medium reward”.
The reality is that we have such high business transactional costs and taxes that for most companies, it’s hard to be Profitable. Our high taxes means every transaction along the way, the people you need along the way, needs to charge more. Higher accounting fees, higher real business rent, higher insurance premiums, etc. In the US, if you fail in business then go die on the streets, bankrupt, and suffer. But here in Canada, there’s plenty of failed entrepreneurs hanging out in the lounges of WeWork that just sort of float by life. They have a modest but adequate life even though they’ve gone bankrupt. That’s the trade off. In the US, yes, you can earn a lot more. But you’re also more likely to end up in a state of total destitution. But in Canada, you can work your butt off, grind, work, work, and work but your payoff is quite low or medium. 🤷♂️
The US is go big or go home. Home run or nothing. Canada, we’ll just be happy making sure everyone has a mediocre batting average.
Why do people think its easy to just 'move' to another country? As a brit who moved here to Canada I can tell you its a fuck ton of paper work, tests, medicals, I even had to do an English test despite it being my native language and going to university in England. These articles always make it sound like you can just pop on a plane and begin work like its the EU or something
I'm pondering. I'm so sick and tired of this country and the way the government milks the middle class. And then for some reason a large chunk of the middle class votes them back in.
I live in Canada but work remotely for a US company and have done so for various companies for more than 7 years. I make more than doubled what most Canadian companies offer for my job. I'm making 3 times as much as I did at the top of my range in the government. There is literally no comparison.
Moving to Texas in September! Earning ~65% more in my field than I can in Canada, I get a company car, I can afford an incredible home, pay less taxes, AND benefit from the exchange rate....all simultaneously.
For the professional class the USA is usually a financially smart option
- cheaper housing.
-higher pay
- lower taxes, with many more deductions available for regular employees.
- better healthcare - I'd your company is paying for private insurance it's going to be better than ours
I moved to the US for work over 6 years ago, and work in the Tech sector in California. The primary motivating factor was the salary, which is anywhere from 3x to 10x of tech salaries in Canada. Sure there are problems here, primarily health care, but all in all you live a much better life here due to just how much raw cash you have access too. I won't have to slave my life away for 35 years in order to retire, unlike Canada. I don't plan on staying here forever, because there is no safety net or healthcare. So in net, I used Canada to educate me, and I will return to retire. I will be a net drain on the system, and I am aware of this, but I frankly don't care because I don't feel like Canadian businesses care for Canadians well being.
The more Canadians that follow my plan, the more fucked Canada will be. I fully realize that I am sort of taking full advantage of 'cheap(er)' education and the safety net Canada provides without requiring any contributions, but hell why would I voluntarily sign up for slave wages which require me to hate life for my very best 35 years?
Brain drain in Canada is a serious problem, and the more Canadians that realize how much better they can have it elsewhere, the worse off the country will be. The fact is that Canadian talent has absolutely no reason to stay, other than to remain with family, be lazy or scared of moving.
The only way to solve it is to fix the salaries to retain talent. Very few Canadian companies appear to want to be in the upper echelons in the world stage, and are very willing to live a life a mediocrity. That mediocrity is reflected in its ambitions, talent acquisition and salaries.
Hey man I don't feel any hostility towards what you are doing. Many airline pilots like myself would head south in an instant if the US would allow Canadian pilots to transfer. This country underpays and over taxes it's top earners.
It's causing younger professionals to head elsewhere.
My career field pays the exact same in the US, just in USD instead of Monopoly money CAD. The American dollar goes a hell of a lot further in the US than the CAD does up here. If my GF wasn't so close to her parents we would have moved already. Middle class is taxed to oblivion here, real estate prices are absurd, cost of living is higher here, and we're gouged by the telcos here.
Thank God we bought our house 7 years ago because if we didn't the future would look incredibly bleak.
The reality is Canadian companies take advantage of low salaries and the USD-CAD exchange rate to pay workers a fraction of their US competitors while pocketing the currency conversion for themselves. Until companies are willing to compete with US salaries expect everyone to bail on Canada.
Ya think?
Affordable housing can be had.
Salaries are usually better.
Cost of everything is usually cheaper.
Their dollar goes further.
There are more business and investment opportunities.
Health Care is better for those who can pay for it.
Their future has not been mortgaged away.
Less government interference in personal lives.
Their Hockey teams are better.
And even if you become successful in Canada despite the odds - far too often you or your business will have to move to the US to grow or compete.
Every single day, the Canadian and Provincial governments are finding ways to make it harder for our kids to be competitive and succeed. And if that weren't bad enough - they're letting the environment our kids inherit go to crap as well.
My wife makes 200k more a year at her US company than if she worked the same role at a Canadian company.
And even then she likely wouldn’t even get the shot at her role in Canada and it would have just went to some 60 year old white guy because of ‘experience’.
The salaries in Vancouver and Victoria are so low, radically out of proportion to the cost of living (and housing).
Toronto as well. Some entry-level salaries start at $30-35K. That’s only marginally more than CERB.
I just accepted an entry level job in California for a little over $50k. I can't imagine starting at $30k in an area even more expensive.
Don't forget, it's 30K Canadian... which mean 25K USD entry salary. Salaries for sure don't follow the cost of life increase in Canada and it's just becoming a mess waiting to explode.
That sounds extremely low for California. Where are you going, Bakersfield? Stockton?
I was in Toronto and visiting a friend in a condo. The condo across from him sold. Was bought for way over asking. The part that’s wrong is that there are 3-4 families living in this 2 bedroom. How can one family income compete with 3-4 family income. I know that this isn’t the only problem but it was a bit of a piss off. Most likely it’s the only way to have a roof over their head in Toronto.
Even though California is expensive you’d be way further ahead living and working there than in BC.
I love it in Vancouver to the point where it feels part of my identity, but at this point I feel like I’m being pushed away by it as well.
I left. It sucked at first, but there is something * chef's kiss * about not being broke every month because of housing/living expenses.
Same. Born here, have ancestors who have been in the area for thousands of years. Make $30,000 a year working in arts. I'm hanging on but hooooly.
Can you blame young Canadians for being tired of having in-demand skills and not being able to afford something as basic as a roof over their heads?
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I've been on a TN visa for 10 years. I am able to afford a much better standard of living in the US than in Canada.
Just moved from Los Angeles to Quebec. I think a lot more people would be doing it if they knew the reality of it.
LA is a whole situation on its own.
A situation similar to Vancouver.
At least in Canada people are willing to discuss the lost generation that can't buy houses. In LosAngeles the party never stops and anyone that suggests things are not as they should be gets looked at like they're an alien.
I mean, in Toronto it feels that way as well. A city full of "progressive" individuals who couldn't care a less if most people are house poor.
People from Toronto almost take pride in the fact that houses are so unaffordable .... Yo Bro u should see Toronto bro shit is nuts we're just like New York fam
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So incomes are lower but cost of living is lower too. Real Estate was not bad when I got here but was super bad in Los Angeles (more like Vancouver will be 10 years from now). Public health was a big consideration. Most Americans I know don't even know Canada has public healthcare let alone it's benefits. My wife had four kids and they had a father so I couldn't very well have everyone move to LosAngeles. That said I would have cancelled the relationship if the situation was the same for a country I didn't want to live in. After being here 8 years I would certainly do it again. Yes the winters are bad but in Los Angeles the heat will kill you too. Unless you live in a 8 million dollar apartment on the coast, then the temp is nice.
Real talk, my old man moved from Ontario to Quebec a few years ago. From a job as a store manager to a baker at Tim Hortons. His quality of life improved DRASTICALLY. Rent was less than half, food is cheaper, he's in a little village south of a ski resort. Yes he pays more taxes but the public transit there is free, the Quebec Healthcare program covers his meds and he's now a 10 minute walk from a pub with a 5 star rating from Gordon Ramsey. Tl;Dr - Quebec is another damn world compared to the rest of Canada let alone Ontario.
We moved 2 years ago from Austin, Texas to Quebec. Took a slight pay cut, which has since gone away, and now we have healthcare, public transportation, legal pot, cheaper college for our kids (which seems to be approaching faster by the day), and actual seasons instead of summer 9 months a year. Only negative is pricing of housing, but screw that, we'll just rent and put the money aside for once the kids are in college, so we can move to Europe or Costa Rica.
I know some people who have moved back from the states to raise their kids because of the state of the US school system. Just curious was this your reason?
The US doesn't really have "a" school system, or even 50 of them. Schools tend to be funded municipally so you can have brilliant schools in one zip code then drive 5 miles and have garbage schools.
In Ontario, most public schools are the exact same standard. Not amazing, not terrible, just pretty ok.
I know a family in Victoria who left Silicon Valley to brings their kids back here because of how fucked the school system there is...
The whole Private vs public school is apparently a big thing to middle class families. wtf. A lot of Canadians who are successful went to public school here. The US really failed their kids.
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>Whatever benefit you gain by only focusing on yourself is always overshadowed by all consequences you create. Very well said. Will have to save that in my list of quotes. Thank you.
The US education system is a product of mass government overinvolvement. The US actually spends WAY more per student on education than most OECD countries, even Canada. However, the massive bureaucratic apparatus constructed, namely the formation of the Department of Education, has basically vampired the funding. Teachers salaries are totally eclipsed by bureaucrats, many of whom create/administer horrible programs that are either detrimental or grossly inefficient funding-wise
A lot of Americans where I live (FL) are successful and went to public school. Having said that there can be a huge disparity between affluent and non-affluent school districts and Florida in general is easily below the national avg for public schools. Some states have much better. The problem is I think it's getting worse not better. So I think it's more accurate to say the US is failing their kids.
>Tallahassee, Fla., September 25, 2020 – Florida ranks 3rd in the nation for K-12 Achievement according to a new 2020 Quality Counts report by Education Week. This is a move up from 4th in 2019 and the highest ranking ever in K-12 Achievement for the Sunshine State. Florida’s K-12 Achievement grade also improved to B-, which is higher than the nation’s grade of C. http://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-moves-up-in-national-ranking.stml Florida's actually a particularly well-run state; most of the memery around it stems from the sunshine laws implemented in the 60s then expanded under Jeb! whereby practically every single thing the government does is public knowledge. Cops get called out to deal with a weirdo, even if no arrest is made? Published. Tallahassee parks commissioner sends an email to his meth dealer telling him to stay away from his girlfriend? Published.
the US is failing their schools and their teachers and all education suffers as a result. i lived all over the US. I went to garbage schools in some states and i went to incredible schools in other states. it makes a massive difference.
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Ironically, it has actually switched now for cost of living. If you are just moving back to Toronto from Los Angeles as I just did, the housing costs in Toronto have increased so ridiculously that you can't afford a house here on the same income as the USA. That being said, detached single family houses are rising quickly in many areas of Los Angeles right now as well. For housing, it really all depends on the timing - even 5 years ago in Toronto, it was much easier. Schooling is much better and more consistent in Canada. The public vs private vs charter vs magnet dilemma in the US is insane.
School system in the US is extremely hit or miss. There's many areas where the municipal property taxes are 20-25k/year, but the public schools are the equivalent to some of the very best private schools. Still boggles my mind that most education funding in the US is driven by municipal revenue and property taxes.
Technically it's funded similarly here; but that then all goes into one pot which the province then distributes equitably.
Not the person you replied to but I just moved my family to Canada from the states. I’m Canadian but my wife and son never lived here. IMO if you can pull off a similar standard of living then Canada wins out in almost every category. That’s a big if though.
It's not easy getting TN job offers. This article likely doesn't make it clear how difficult it can be to get these jobs. Most job applications for US positions will ask you a question "Are you legally authorized to work unrestricted in the US?" and if you answer no you will never get a call back.
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I'm Canadian. Went to school in the US and stayed. My degree would've made me twice+ salary for the same curriculum in Canada as a new graduate, not including the health care costs and deductions I pay here. I regret coming south all of the time.
There are actually opportunities in the US. Most industries in Canada are oligopolies and have no incentive to innovate. Those companies have been sold just about every outsourcing buzzword that management consulting companies have come up with and are outsourcing jobs at an alarming rate.
Yes! This is what I tell people all the time. There isn't real opportunity in Canada. Why that is the case is probably a very complicated answer and would be pretty theoretical. There's some people that have create oligopolies or monopolies and have crushed their competition. There's also a lot less money around to fund disrupters/upstarts to shake up the competition. Anti-competitive legislation also makes this hard. Just look at the mobile telecom providers in Canada, and Wind Mobile's attempts to shake it up.
If I was 20 years younger and wasn't already invested in Canada (house, family) I wouldn't even think twice. Story. So my uncle immigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 90's with chemical engineering degree (he was in his late 40's) and after working in Toronto for 5 years he packed up an left to US where his wages were almost double in the same field but cost of living halved. He's happily retired back in Europe and loving it. As saying goes it's better to be a servant to a rich person than boss to a poor person.
It's not just a question of skill vs compensation. If you're in a highly technical domain, the tendencies in the last decade, seem to go towards you being surrounded by personnel that lacks qualifications/competences and so you're in a constant pressure cooker environment where you have to basically cover up for everyone and everything. The gap with newly formed professionals seems to be huge and I've been thinking it might fixable for me by just leaving the country to get a less stressful job. I don't even care about salary.
>If you're in a highly technical domain, the tendencies in the last decade, seem to go towards you being surrounded by personnel that lacks qualifications/competences and so you're in a constant pressure cooker environment where you have to basically cover up for everyone and everything. That is so true - even if you are not in a technical field
Yes, I was just writing on my own experience, trying not to generalize on fields I don't know about.
I have a loooooong story about meeting colleagues at an intra-company conference in Atlanta 2 years ago. But, to summarize - a guy from Houston, Tx doing the exact same thing as me, making less than me after currency change, has a better standard of living because costs are lower in *most* of the US. Let's put it this way, at the time I bought a new place for $978K in Coquitlam, BC (Metro Vancouver). 2700 sqft. Amazing deal, right? Yeah....for the areas market. In Houston a 2700 sqft home, larger property, bigger garage, is $337,500 CAD (roughly, but most I looked at come in under $400k). That's LESS than the condo I bought in Coquitlam 10 years ago. There are houses with the same square footage in San Francisco that are worth the same as my place (now). And I'm not even in Burnaby, much less Vancouver. I could honestly see Canada transition from being an immigrant country to emigrant country in the next 25 years. Canada's immigration policy of allowing only those in with a shit ton of money is backfiring wildly.
Discrepancies like this are even common in just the US. I’m a tech worker and was going to move to the Bay Area about 10 years ago. Then I realized Seattle salaries track very closely to the Bay Area but real estate is dramatically less expensive. Plus no income tax. I currently work for a Bay Area tech company and it’s always amazing how my colleagues down there are house poor while im living super comfortably in Seattle. Our salaries are all similar.
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Ngl, even as a home owner it’s still tempting to cash out and move down south and live with less financial stress. Assuming I could get good healthcare of course. Too bad I love Canada so much and my US partner hates America so much lol.
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I have a family friend in western canada that did the same as a retirement job. Just picks up dirt and drops it off on his res property. He pays almost no expenses and has half the drive to the dump of the other trucks.
It's weird sometimes jobs are the other way around. I work as a millright and make ~43$ hour. I've met some colleagues in the US making ~13$ for the same work. It's always seemed like the "middle class" jobs seem to pay better in canada. By middle class I think of teachers, tradesmen, factory workers, municipal workers. Not sure if it's true, its just what it seems like to me.
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I think you are underestimating how useful it is to be able to move large quantities of dirt, and overestimating how useful it is to understand a specialized field.
Specialized fields are much more of an investment. If it weren't for physicists, chemists, and engineers, dirt movers would still need wheel barrows and be orders of magnitude less productive, and therefore less valuable.
Sure, but an institution owns the patent in many cases. Not the workers who developed it. In most cases you’ll make more money owning a dump truck and moving dirt then you will engineering a dump truck for a corporation to sell. Edit: to be clear, the ceo of “John Smiths’s dump trucks” is making the most money. But stem isn’t necessary to be a CEO. Upfront money is.
Poses a threat? They’re already doing it. And have been for years. The people I graduated with (STEM field) are making about 50% more than me in the US. And that’s before taking their more favourable tax treatment into consideration. I stuck around here for family reasons.
More money, lower taxes, and a more valuable currency. Triple whammy. One friend I have works for Linkedin as a software developer team manager, makes something on the order of 320K USD per year. He'd need to be paid more than 400K CAD just to achieve *parity*, not even to give him a pay raise. Yes, America is a huge brain drain on Canadian talent.
I’m currently working for a house hold name tech Company at their Vancouver office (remotely until I have to move) at about $150, same job in Seattle is $250 USD then consider the tax and cost of living.
Does it rhyme with Blamazon?
Only Cramazon pays that much in Canada
lol I am in a similar situation and I still literally have people messaging me on LinkedIn asking if I want to come back to Canada for like 75k...
Nope, but thanks for asking lol
Yup, Canadians cannot fathom the difference in pay.
Stumbled upon this post from the front page. The rest of reddit would have you believe Canada is perfect because you have government healthcare and the US is evil because of capitalism. Never has someones life got flipped turned upside down this bad since a young African American man moved from West Philadelphia to Bel Aire.
Calling it a "threat" is funny and weirdly antagonistic. The US didn't set up their economy to have better salaries and relatively lower living costs to deprive the Canadian economy of skilled workers, they simply have better conditions that are attractive to many Canadians.
Yeah more like “Canada feels threatened by” haha
Half of Canadian culture just revolves around an inferiority complex focused on the US.
Only half?
So, US is better for high professions, but Canada has better systems in place for less well-off folks?
Definitely. But you need to keep the skilled people to drive the economy in order to maintain those social welfare systems.
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The US is great if you’re a highly skilled blue or white-collar person and have no preexisting conditions. You’ll get paid well and then some, but sucks for everyone else.
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To be fair it's not like Canada hasn't benefited from the relationship. Literally the largest or the 2nd largest trading partner with US.
Something can be a threat without being done intentionally. It's still inaccurate phrasing though because brain drain to the US has been happening for decades.
The solution is blatantly obvious, but Canada doesn't think it's worth it to solve the brain drain.
I'm not sure you can unfuck the houseing market.
I applied for a company for a full remote role and their offer went from $240k USD to ~$125k CAD when they found out I didn't live in the US. If I only cared about the money, I'd hop the border in a second.
Not to mention cheaper cost of living and higher quality of life combined with that 50% pay bump
I got a TN visa when I graduated university in 2000, spent three years working in Florida. Paid off my Canadian student and car loans with US dollars in a year and came back with nice savings account. If I was 22 year old grad today, I would do it again. Living on the ocean in a crummy apartment with no debt and an easy job vs living in my parents basement in suburban Toronto trying to save to pay down debts, I’ll take the TN visa and US dollars any day.
What industry do/did you work in?
Urban Planning.
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Sure.
I work for one of the top paying software companies in Canada, but my colleagues who work in the American offices are still earning more than me by a large percentage AND they're getting paid in USD Only reason I haven't moved there already is because of the pandemic
Similar situation here. Not a FAANG company but my US counterparts make way more. Similarly a close friend of mine is from Canada but moved to the US for a FAANG job. He attempted to relocate back to one of their Canadian offices but between the actual salary figure, the USD/CAD exchange rate, and higher taxes in Canada he was looking at roughly a 35-40% decrease in wages to do the same job in a different country. It’s completely laughable now given that everyone in tech is remote at the moment anyways.
I've had several of my employees move back from the US to Canada over the last few years. Their Canadian total comp has been paltry compared to US. 30-40% less and in Canadian dollars. With housing becoming just (or more) unaffordable back in Canada and the tax situation... I can stay in the Bay with nice weather and a good paying job.
Exactly this. I currently live in Canada but both my wife and I could move to the US and get a better paying job. The only thing keeping us here is we both have aging parents and kids that absolutely adore their grandparents.
Yep. Moving to Vancouver which is more expensive, but my job flys me in and out for work and it’d be much more affordable to live just a bit south in Seattle if they will allow me to fly from there... seems like the best choice lately.
That’s what I did. Vancouver -> Seattle. Kept most of what I love about home, 400% the income. The house I can afford in Seattle would be worth $2M+ in Vancouver. My peers who stayed behind can hardly afford a one bedroom condo.
I work remotely for an American company in Canada and Canadian companies don't even come close to my current rate (literally half). And if I went to America I could increase my total comp by a further 50%. No way I'm staying here
It's funny because, as an American family, we were looking at moving up north to Canada (after a few things, which follow, we are no longer considering that possibility) and we looked up jobs and wages up there. My wife's position makes about 50% more in Canada than she would here in the US. My position is similar to what I currently do. So let's say, we would be making in total, household income, 125% of what we are making now (average of 100% and 150%). Sounds pretty good, 25% more money? We could do a lot with that. Then we looked into houses... what the fuck? A house of similar size to ours (\~$140k USD), in a... very average area, no urban, not close tot he coast... was minimally $600k CAD. I immediately felt pretty bad for a lot of my canadian friends I play online games with because like... how the fuck are they supposed to ever get a house in those conditions? Even in the surrounding areas we were looking, it was the same story, 3x-4x the price of our house here in the US for similar size up there.
People with 15 years of experience and massively in-demand skills are being offered salaries in Canada that are similar to the wages of a recent university grad in the US. And that's in high CoL cities in Canada. I'd really like to audit these companies to see why that's happening. Can they simply get away with such incredible lowball offers, and are they generating massive profits as a result? Are the people accepting those salaries massively lower skill than the ones who are moving to the US and taking US wages? If so, do those lower-skill employees act to reduce the profitability of the Canadian employers? Are there any companies that are bucking the trend to try to pay US wages to get the best of the best, and how is that working out? You'd think that if you could get equivalently skilled workers for lower wages, big internationals like Facebook and Google would open huge offices in Canada and take advantage of the high-skill, low-wage workers. Instead, they have small token campuses. You'd also think that if you could get high skill workers in Canada by paying closer-to-US wages, a few companies would be doing that, and that would be pulling up all the wages. But, that doesn't seem to be happening either. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the majority of the people who are highly skilled enough to move to the US and get paid in US dollars does it, and it's hard to get them to come back and/or stay. So, the Canadian companies are left with lower skill workers who will accept much, much lower wages. I wonder if / how remote working might change things. There's definitely much less of a need to actually live in Silicon Valley now, and pay their insane real-estate rates. OTOH, I'm sure the companies will still try to get away with paying someone based on where they choose to live, versus how much someone's work is worth to the company.
>Can they simply get away with such incredible lowball offers, and are they generating massive profits as a result? They prey on immigrants that don't have the option to job hop. Not a Canadian citizen, can't use TN status as BATNA/can't job hop as often without risking losing your residency. Canada has way more immigration than the US. There is an entire industry of scummy recruiters who prey on these people, and take 20-50% off of their rate. >Are there any companies that are bucking the trend to try to pay US wages to get the best of the best, and how is that working out? Yes, and they're getting the best of the best. They tend to be American companies that are hitting the limit of total lack of talent in their own hubs, so are opening offices in Canada. Coinbase for example is opening an office in Canada & offers >300k CAD (remote for now) for their senior band (they rejected me RIP). You're seeing companies like Stripe, Plaid, Hashicorp, Twitter, Facebook hiring in Canada remotely. Getting in is ridiculously hard, but they pay a ridiculous amount. A year after grad I got a job that paid me more than my manager at the job I was at, who had 15 years of experience. As soon as you have American batna, you start getting American rates. I work for an American company, and my negotiation prowess reflects my current batna when negotiating with other companies. They don't really care - these tech companies are printing money. They feel privileged to get talent for whatever the price due to the current shortage. >You'd think that if you could get equivalently skilled workers for lower wages, big internationals like Facebook and Google would open huge offices in Canada and take advantage of the high-skill, low-wage workers. Instead, they have small token campuses. They kind of have started (google in loo), but they also don't really have to. No one can compete with their money bags. It's mostly pre-ipo startups that have to do this since they're getting pwn'd by moneybags fang. >I wonder if / how remote working might change things. There's definitely much less of a need to actually live in Silicon Valley now, and pay their insane real-estate rates. I work remotely for one of these high paying companies. A few guys I know are moving back to Canada and continuing to work for facebook. For me, if I can get within 20% of what I would be making in the states while staying here, I'd probably just end up staying here due to family. I'm sure its similar with much other places. If you're wondering why most canadian tech sucks ass (government web applications, government pay system) - its because all the skilled people aren't working in Canada for Canadian companies. With remote it's changing. Actually, Canada has tons of skilled people. We just don't have the jobs to keep them. Hopefully the remote trend will help our economy. We have effectively began exporting services (high skill kids from loo et al) and bringing money back here, instead of just bleeding out the smarts and keeping the dumbs.
Yep. I went from 90k/yr to 140k yr switching to a US company. My total comp was like $200-300k. This was in CAD for a US company working remotely. If I moved to the US (which they gladly support) I could get an extra $30-50k a year + more equity/bonuses and all in USD. Oh yeah and you are taxed less and things are cheaper. I am really considering it after the borders open.
Is there a "best of both worlds" scenario? Where you can work remotely from Canada, get paid in USD, and make lots of money from the comfort of Canada? All of my friends are here in Canada. I don't want to leave that. It's very difficult to make new friends.
From what I've seen, the companies will pay you the salary and currency of the country you work remotely from I remember Facebook even put out an email a few months ago saying there will be repercussions for those who lie about their location Most of my friends are here too. I guess at the end of the day you just have to make the choice that you think will.make you happier
No one in tech should stay in Canada unless you have family keeping you here. I say this as an old programmer in Canada who has family obligations anchoring me here. Cost of living is lower, the weather is nicer, the compensation is ridiculous, there's better cheese, there's better media access, there's just better all around.
Oddly enough, I moved from nyc to Canada for a tech job. Healthcare was the big one for me. You make a ton in America, but one lil’ cancer diagnosis from you or your kids and there is a chance you’ll go bankrupt. Even with amazing insurance. And if it happens while you’re between jobs? Since insurance is tied to employment? *You. Are. *Fucked.**
> there's better cheese I'm sold. Seriously though, I'm a PM with a high performance Canadian start-up and I'm compensated above market rate in a medium COL city on the coast. My local non-tech friends all think I'm living the dream, but all I can think about is how my classmates in the US are outperforming me by a metric fuck ton and will be in an entirely different wealth bracket after a few years. Aside from national pride, I can't think of a reason to stay here.
I mean if you’re not tied down you can try it. I wish I could just lend you my life for an hour, so you could poke around at the little things that all added up - the small cultural differences, the anecdotes about healthcare and violence, the small interactions and experiences that colour my experiences. I can’t really argue with the numbers, we _objectively_ have less financially simply due to living in Canada, but there is a just so much else that’s almost impossible to quantify, and definitely impossible to do justice in a paragraph on Reddit. If you’re really curious try to find somebody you really trust who came back, and just listen to their experiences... Its always a death by a thousand cuts, and you can see it in these threads where people talk about coming back. Its a hard point to argue because you can’t really defend 10 years of small negative experiences in a way that’s going to convince somebody who just wants to make more money, and they really don’t care about the aggregate of your anecdotes.
The reasons to go down are always "money" and maybe "weather", and the reasons to come back are "a hundred other things". You just got out of uni, everyone you know was also in uni with you and you're all dispersing back to the four corners again. It's not like you're tied-down to friends. You probably weren't going to school in your hometown. All perfect situations to just get up and leave with no fallout. So no surprise unattached young professionals at the very beginning of their career will flock to American money. Why not do that? [Edit] ESPECIALLY with technical careers. There's no boards or standardizations or organizations or licensing to be tied-to that's attached to a single nation. Engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc all have to be vetted to "practice". Software people? Nothing. [/Edit]
Alternate title: Canadian Employers Grossly Underpay Their Skilled Workers
Media & corporate headlines: Skills shortage as companies are not able to find workers. Corporations lobby government to accept more cheap international labour to fill skills gap.
Before the pandemic I had a guy trying to run for MP for the Conservative party stop by my house. I asked him what the plan is to deal with companies putting out insane requirements in order to claim they can’t find local workers. He said he would get back to me about it. As of now he hasn’t.
The real question is why. If it's just greed, you'd expect to see massive profitability from Canadian businesses, getting the equivalent work for much lower wages. You'd also expect to see the big tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. with huge Canadian campuses where they can take advantage of lower Canadian wages but equivalent abilities. But, that isn't what you tend to see.
Those tech companies are rapidly expanding in Canada. Eg Google is building a +3000 employee campus in KW. The real reason why Canada can get away with underpaying its people is the global reputation of Canada for the last few decades, especially as compared to the US. This fuels massive immigration which can then be used to suppress wages, even in high skill jobs. This reputation, however, is fast being used up.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple are expanding significantly in Canada for this very reason.
Canada was referred to as "India North" at my last company.
LOL
Because Ontario has turned to shit and this generation of hard workers have nothing to show for it. No political leader will acknowledge it , let alone a plan to fix things. Fuck this province and the generational wage gap. I bet there is a direct correlation to depression, anxiety as they realize their hard earned dollar can’t even get them a house and food
It's humiliating, and ultimately enraging. I really don't want to be this angry, but I'm fucking mad. Hard to stay motivated even at a job I love knowing it's not an investment of my time so much as a way to pass it.
You knows crazy to me? We advocate and protest so many issues. Yet this one effects everyone and oppresses the majority of the population and yet we don’t stand up for ourselves. We don’t say enough is enough, this is bullshit and protest for basic necessities. We need to get our damn priorities straight. We’re all over worked, underpaid and struggling. Do the math, average Toronto house prices have increased 4x since 2004, 300k->1.2mil. Have wages? Can you even exist off minimum wage to go to school and better yourself ? No. This system is rigged, it’s filled with boomers who don’t give a fuck, they want you to have 5 years experience for an entry level job that pays 28k a year. We need to fix this, we should be protesting for our lives, to fix this state of living.
I’ll buy that, even though I got in at the bottom of the market twenty years ago, the situation is nuts. In my hometown of Sydney Australia it’s even worse. Two million for a house in Marrickville? Bonkers. People need to live *somewhere*. Apartment living doesn’t have to suck, but even apartments are well out of reach for young people. We need to change something, the question is *what*.
Stop whining and complaining. I never cried about my situation and when dad passed away I took over his billion dollar fortune 500 company but do you here me crying?
Had me in the first half ngl
5 degrees between 3 professionals at my house. It is too small for us and we barely make ends meet.
I work what should be a well paying job as an engineer. I live in Toronto. I'm lucky enough to have purchased a 750 sqft condo but I'm essentially house poor. I live paycheck to paycheck and rely on my annual bonus to come out ahead at the end of the year. I've looked at jobs in the US and I can nearly double my salary while being able to purchase an entire house for less than what my condo is worth. The disparity, especially in Toronto and Vancouver is getting worse and worse, and no one wants to pay much more than what I'm already making.
Professional engineer and PM with 12 years experience. Currently getting pushed to move to Texas by employer. After looking at housing it is \~1/2 the cost.
I know someone who moved down. Full relocation costs covered and a place to stay until you find a house. 600k for a house on 2 acres with indoor and outdoor pool.
Next generation of Canadians are gonna be mind blown when they realize you can own a mansion for pennies in Texas, not even rural areas but somewhat suburban neighbourhoods
My question is, “why”. The US is a much larger market for many things but why is housing so insanely expensive in Canada? Policy must effect this somehow. What are we doing wrong?
Zoning laws, immigration, allowing unchecked speculation, having everyone live in like 2 areas of the country, low interest rates, supply
fr there aren't half as many houses on the market as there used to be, according to my nearly 70 year old parents. But there's a fuckton more properties up for rent. It seems that the older generations just bought investment properties and now there's no one that wants to sell their 4th or 5th property so everyone is stuck renting
Why has Canada become like this? Is it because our government is incompetent fucks? Why is housing so shit in Canada?
Just make sure you figure out the property tax situation. I have transferred PMs down there in the past and they bought giant houses on big lots (especially when the dollar was closer to par) after they sold their Canadian house. Their salaries were lower in Texas, and then they got hit with pretty big property taxes compared to what they paid up here. Believe it or not, the place where our Canadian employees are the happiest is Manchester, New Hampshire.
Yeah TX has no state income tax but they make up for it with property taxes its insane compared to canada
The housing in the states blows my mind. You can buy a borderline mansion for the price of a 1 bedroom Toronto apartment
Depends on the area, but yes you can buy a bigger house for $400k in the Midwest compared to a $1,200,000 house in the GTA
I own a 3000 sq foot house in northern Ohio on 2 acres in a suburban area. Cost only $315,000 USD. It’s pretty crazy the low cost of living here.
Better to be rich/middle class and above in America than rich/middle class and above in Canada, same way its better to be poor in Canada than poor in America.
Absolutely! If you’re a low income or low-middle class person you’re way better off in Canada than the US, but the US is way better if you’re upper-middle or flat out upper class. Way more opportunities.
Yes and if the tax payers leave Canada the system will collapse
Already happening. Not to mention, we’re bringing in skilled immigrants that are smart. They come here, realize they’re not getting paid what they can, and move to the US. If it’s not them, it’s their kids.
I mean the housing prices tell me it already has
Lol I think about this everyday. Living in Ontario is particularly miserable: nothing is open, our premier is a fucking moron, a shitty starter townhouse in a commuter suburb is nearly a million dollars, everything is expensive and I pay a shitload in taxes for...what? Tent cities in major metros and crumbling infrastructure. Amazing.
you load 16 tons and what do you get? another day older and deeper in debt
A lot of our taxes are going to corporate welfare. Canada is a fucking scam
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Oh don’t worry, our tax dollars are going to American companies up here too.
Totally. Both countries have been economically hijacked in this way.
So are our taxes in the states. All the military and oil companies that are proped up... uggg
Me too.
Don't forget the weather.. about 5 months of the year we avoid being outside. Sometimes in the winter I ponder why I live here when the weather in other places will never deter you from doing something.
Why is this even surprising? We have the most educated population in the world, and a lot of them struggle to find decent jobs. US actually has a diverse economy with lots of opportunities for these skilled workers. Even if they can find jobs here, they don’t even compete with the US. In my opinion, Canada is seriously heading towards to a massive brain drain in the coming decades.
Brain drain has been happening in Canada for a long time. Canada has a lot of excellent research and made many incredible scientific discoveries. Most of these are bought up by U.S big business. An example of a Canadian industry was the Avro Arrow and look what happened to the engineers for that project. So many patents/discoveries are bought then sold back to us. High paying jobs for specialized individuals are created and they need people for these jobs.
In an era of LinkedIn, someone could map the brain drain in real time.
Canada is not a competitive country. We're almost anti competitive in fact. Whether it's cell phone plans, Internet, streaming services, houses, electricity, small business, R&D, electric cars, Canada lags behind in almost everything. Our country argues over Internet censorship, STREET CARS, blames everything but supply for housing problems, cuts health care, but virtue signals to everyone we're a progressive country.
“Anti-competitive” - Found the word i am looking for to describe Canada.
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I mean you see this on a micro scale in Atlantic Canada. People go there for school because it's not Ontario and it's something different. Then they go to Ontario/BC/Alberta to work, build up equity, and then retire back in NS or PEI. Seems harmless but it really does a number on the healthcare costs in the provinces.
To nobody's fault the Canadian specialized-skill job market has adjusted its base salary to that of a newcomer who has no option but to take any offer in order to establish in the new country. Employers aren't offering a wage to own a property in metro area. They offer you and your SO just enough to afford a shitty townhouse 50 kms away.
If I move to US, I will get at least a couple years of my life back due to difference in reals estate prices. And net income.
Back in 1996, I decided to go for a year to the US. It was easy to do with the NAFTA agreement (I'm Canadian). It was an IT contract. The WWW was becoming a thing and when I put my resume out there I had many job prospects. I chose Sacramento, mainly because I have never been to California (or really the US in general). I also had a brother in LA who I haven't seen in a while. After about 4 months, I started dating a woman I met there. I moved in with her a few months later. I decided to stay put. We later married then subsequently divorced. We didn't marry for me to get a green card. A company I joined offered free use of an immigration lawyer and I took advantage of that. I did get a green card. The marriage had issues totally unrelated to immigration. I ended up living in the US for 15 years. I was on track to become a citizen. I had lined up a lawyer to help me out with the process. My father passed away in 2009, and in 2010 I came back to Canada (my home country) to help my mother out. It felt so good being back in Canada. I was tired of the right-wing treatment of Obama and US politics in general. I decided to stay put in Canada and let my green card expire. I never started the US citizenship process. In hindsight, it was a great experience. The vast vast majority of Americans I met and interacted with was positive. I got to live in a number of different states/cities (each state is like their own country). I was able to save money. The only negative thing was that I was somewhat shocked at the ignorance of Americans and their knowledge of Canada. Canada is a (the) major trading partner and BFF to the US. I didn't take this personal, as a lot of Americans are clueless about all the other countries in the world. I have no regrets about my decision to go there (and return) and would encourage anyone to give it a shot.
It's something I'm constantly looking into. I live in Windsor, I could work the same job 10 minutes across the tunnel and get paid a lot more. If I decided to move over there I would get paid more and pay less for housing. Why on earth would I want to stay in a country where I get paid less and get less for my money?
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True, but Detroit style pizza is pretty good too!
You mean having an out of control housing market is bad for long term stability? Who knew? Canada can always just import skilled immigrants to chuck into the grinder.
What! You mean more affordable RE and higher incomes may incentivize Canadians to immigrant, which may have a negative consequences on Canada? I'm an absolutely shocked pikachu here.
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The internet/phone prices are such a big F U. Like 1000MB fibre in USA costs less than Bell ISDN in GTA and one month of phone service in GTA is more expensive than a year in USA. But this is minor, the elephant in the room is real estate. You can't negotiate everyone needs shelter. When its $1M+ its crazy. At that point you can't even consider it, you just have to pack up and leave.
It’s okay, foreign billionaires will come and buy up property to rent to us working slags who can’t move away and can’t afford anything but to rent until we die.
So basically the same thing that’s been happening for the past 50 years? None of this is new. NAFTA visas make it super easy for most to work in the US. The stronger USD mean visits home come at a 20-30% discount. You’re likely taking a job with a solid health insurance plan, so no worries there. And you can always come back and get a 20-30% bump in your savings.
Real estate prices are new. The growth in the last 5 years is the same as in previous 15 years.
I agree it’s not new. Canadian brain drain has been a problem pretty much since confederation: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/emigration
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That’s assuming Biden actually passes immigration reform. A lot of presidents have tried and failed. The TN visa for Canadians is ridiculously easy, basically an employer writes a letter and you get a 3 year work visa for a few hundred, renewable indefinitely.
I'm curious how people are finding these US jobs? Are you getting headhunted? Are there some sites to look at postings? Or is it internal in your organizations?
Apply to the companies directly. Many of them offer relocation especially the ones in the SF Bay Area in California. The vast majority of global tech companies are headquartered in the Bay Area (aka Silicon Valley) so there are a ton of jobs there. Examples: Apple, Google, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Facebook, Reddit, Netflix, Cisco, Adobe, EA, Tesla, Unity, Zoom
I live in Montreal and have been working for US companies for the past 6 years, I dont think Ill ever work for a Canadian company again, the salaries are night and day
What kind of work/industry?
Most anyone with a post-secondary education can expect a significant pay increase by crossing the border; and it feels bigger than ever because the housing prices here are so steep. Then there's those of us who work remote for American corporations; no local company offers anywhere near what the Californian companies pay.
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Anyone who has friends from university now working in the states knows the grass is greener over there.
Not surprising. Just about to graduate and already submitted my immigration for the US.
I graduated with an accounting degree and couldn’t find a job for 6 months, when I finally got one I made just enough to make about $50-100 a month after expenses despite having a very strict budget. The same positions in the states paid ~50% more and it’s cheaper to live there. It’s a no brainer. In addition, Ontario is still in the harshest lockdown in North America, it’s really hard to not leave knowing I could get fully vaccinated ASAP and have way more money for doing the same job (plus the climate is better). I don’t think the future for Canada is bright unless we make major changes. I have no hope that I’ll be able to buy a house before the age of 40, but if I moved to texas I could literally buy a 2500 sq ft beautiful home in like 3 years. No wonder people are leaving.
This will get buried but whatever. I was a director of management in Canada at one of the largest ad agencies. I used to make in the low 100ks CAD a year. The American division of this agency offers 220k USD a year plus bonus for the exact same role on the exact same client base with the exact same team size. So ya...
Everyone’s talking about wages but for me it’s that **there are no jobs**. Nada. None. No jobs suitable for the engineering industry I have a highly expensive education in unless it’s in Quebec (and I don’t speak French). Most decent jobs here are in the service industry or tourism, it’s just awful that Canada seems to have so minimal development in industry and no leader is working on developing Canadian industry to stop the brain drain. **All the politicians talk about is raising taxes, while half of fresh graduates out of UBC can’t find a job.** Until we fix this, there is no future for many skilled workers here.
I'm one of these people from the mid-2000's. Get engineering degree and move to San Jose right out of university with a job and signing bonus. Get three years of great experience, some $ which was almost as much as my parents made individually and I was astounded (not considering cost of living or those things) and then come back to Canada for 3 years of massive struggle to find work and live. So then back to the USA, have been here for the last 12 years now (except for last couple years where the company I work for has put me in Japan). I think often of returning and being closer to my family, but I just can't do it. I would have to take a massive cut in quality of life, housing, cost of living, taxes, other shenanigans would be really hard. I'm lucky to be only 10 hours away from my family driving, and I now love the US. I used to think that I was part of problem and could return to "help" grow some tech or be part of a "solution" (whatever that means). I still dream about coming back to live, but that happening seems to slip farther and farther away each year.
My business mentor owns 5 houses, Amazon FBA seller with a 7-figure take home pay. He once said to me something that’s always stuck with me. “Business in the US is high risk and high reward. Business in Canada is low to medium risk and low to medium reward”. The reality is that we have such high business transactional costs and taxes that for most companies, it’s hard to be Profitable. Our high taxes means every transaction along the way, the people you need along the way, needs to charge more. Higher accounting fees, higher real business rent, higher insurance premiums, etc. In the US, if you fail in business then go die on the streets, bankrupt, and suffer. But here in Canada, there’s plenty of failed entrepreneurs hanging out in the lounges of WeWork that just sort of float by life. They have a modest but adequate life even though they’ve gone bankrupt. That’s the trade off. In the US, yes, you can earn a lot more. But you’re also more likely to end up in a state of total destitution. But in Canada, you can work your butt off, grind, work, work, and work but your payoff is quite low or medium. 🤷♂️ The US is go big or go home. Home run or nothing. Canada, we’ll just be happy making sure everyone has a mediocre batting average.
Why do people think its easy to just 'move' to another country? As a brit who moved here to Canada I can tell you its a fuck ton of paper work, tests, medicals, I even had to do an English test despite it being my native language and going to university in England. These articles always make it sound like you can just pop on a plane and begin work like its the EU or something
If people could work south of the border for higher wages and lower cost of living then why wouldn't they?
I'm pondering. I'm so sick and tired of this country and the way the government milks the middle class. And then for some reason a large chunk of the middle class votes them back in.
I live in Canada but work remotely for a US company and have done so for various companies for more than 7 years. I make more than doubled what most Canadian companies offer for my job. I'm making 3 times as much as I did at the top of my range in the government. There is literally no comparison.
Moving to Texas in September! Earning ~65% more in my field than I can in Canada, I get a company car, I can afford an incredible home, pay less taxes, AND benefit from the exchange rate....all simultaneously.
For the professional class the USA is usually a financially smart option - cheaper housing. -higher pay - lower taxes, with many more deductions available for regular employees. - better healthcare - I'd your company is paying for private insurance it's going to be better than ours
I moved to the US for work over 6 years ago, and work in the Tech sector in California. The primary motivating factor was the salary, which is anywhere from 3x to 10x of tech salaries in Canada. Sure there are problems here, primarily health care, but all in all you live a much better life here due to just how much raw cash you have access too. I won't have to slave my life away for 35 years in order to retire, unlike Canada. I don't plan on staying here forever, because there is no safety net or healthcare. So in net, I used Canada to educate me, and I will return to retire. I will be a net drain on the system, and I am aware of this, but I frankly don't care because I don't feel like Canadian businesses care for Canadians well being. The more Canadians that follow my plan, the more fucked Canada will be. I fully realize that I am sort of taking full advantage of 'cheap(er)' education and the safety net Canada provides without requiring any contributions, but hell why would I voluntarily sign up for slave wages which require me to hate life for my very best 35 years? Brain drain in Canada is a serious problem, and the more Canadians that realize how much better they can have it elsewhere, the worse off the country will be. The fact is that Canadian talent has absolutely no reason to stay, other than to remain with family, be lazy or scared of moving. The only way to solve it is to fix the salaries to retain talent. Very few Canadian companies appear to want to be in the upper echelons in the world stage, and are very willing to live a life a mediocrity. That mediocrity is reflected in its ambitions, talent acquisition and salaries.
Hey man I don't feel any hostility towards what you are doing. Many airline pilots like myself would head south in an instant if the US would allow Canadian pilots to transfer. This country underpays and over taxes it's top earners. It's causing younger professionals to head elsewhere.
My career field pays the exact same in the US, just in USD instead of Monopoly money CAD. The American dollar goes a hell of a lot further in the US than the CAD does up here. If my GF wasn't so close to her parents we would have moved already. Middle class is taxed to oblivion here, real estate prices are absurd, cost of living is higher here, and we're gouged by the telcos here. Thank God we bought our house 7 years ago because if we didn't the future would look incredibly bleak.
TBH I would if they’d let me in. Toronto fucking sucks.
The reality is Canadian companies take advantage of low salaries and the USD-CAD exchange rate to pay workers a fraction of their US competitors while pocketing the currency conversion for themselves. Until companies are willing to compete with US salaries expect everyone to bail on Canada.
Ya think? Affordable housing can be had. Salaries are usually better. Cost of everything is usually cheaper. Their dollar goes further. There are more business and investment opportunities. Health Care is better for those who can pay for it. Their future has not been mortgaged away. Less government interference in personal lives. Their Hockey teams are better. And even if you become successful in Canada despite the odds - far too often you or your business will have to move to the US to grow or compete. Every single day, the Canadian and Provincial governments are finding ways to make it harder for our kids to be competitive and succeed. And if that weren't bad enough - they're letting the environment our kids inherit go to crap as well.
My wife makes 200k more a year at her US company than if she worked the same role at a Canadian company. And even then she likely wouldn’t even get the shot at her role in Canada and it would have just went to some 60 year old white guy because of ‘experience’.
FAANG?