Canada calling: tech industry lures workers north in wake of Trump

[Judi Lynn]

Tech companies in Canada are launching bold recruitment campaigns that pitch the northern neighbor as a stable alternative to Trump’s turbulence

Ashifa Kassam in Toronto
@ashifa_k
Sunday 4 June 2017 06.00 EDT


The ads were launched months before Donald Trump was elected president and they got straight to the point. “Thinking of moving to Canada?” read one, set to a backdrop of the Republican candidate at a rally. Another made by a startup in southern Ontario featured Trump flashing a thumbs up.

The brazen recruitment campaign was among the first to capture the streak of opportunism now rippling through Canada’s tech sector.

For decades the sector has watched as much of its talent headed south, lured by better pay and big names. Those who chose to stay behind, meanwhile, were left fretting about a looming shortage of skilled workers. Then came Trump.

“Crazy day,” Ryan Holmes, the founder of Hootsuite, a social media management platform based in Vancouver, noted on Twitter the day after the US election. He had already heard from five potential candidates based in the US as well the founder of a 60-person company looking to relocate north of the border. “Is this the reversal of the talent diaspora that Canada has historically seen and [the] beginning of the US brain drain?” he asked.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/04/canada-tech-industry-recruit-americans-silicon-valley-trump

[SunSeeker]

1. Our loss is Canada's gain.

[iamateacher]

2. Had dinner with a Canadian professor. .high tech

Their universities are overwhelmed with applicants Remember the Oklahoma City deaths were Indian engineers working for Garmen. We pretty much have everyone scared to come here.

[Nitram]

3. Canada is beautiful in the summer.

But unless you're talking Vancouver, the winters are way too harsh.