Brain Draining Computer Industry Has Canada Reeling
May 25, 1998 - 0:0
WASHINGTON Canada's high-tech industry is in crisis. The reason: not enough workers to go around. The small software company Fastlane Technologies, Inc., based in Halifax, Canada, is a case in point. The company has joined a growing number of firms in Canada that are offering cash rewards to anyone who can refer a new employee to them. The small firm is looking for 50 programmers and other high- tech employees.
Job ads and professional headhunters can't satisfy the demand. Even larger Canadian computer and high-tech firms face labor shortages. The tight job market is pushing up salaries, and companies are regularly offering employees bonus payments and stock options in an effort to attract and retain skilled workers. Although the Canadian Software Human Resources Council recently reported an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent (1.3 million), some 20,000 jobs for programmers remain unfilled.
The competition for qualified employees is intensifying. The Canadian worker shortage has been exacerbated by U.S. companies, which are scouring the Canadian markets to fill some 340,000 top positions in the high-tech industry. If current trends continue, the number of technology positions that need to be filled in the United States over the next three years could rise to 1.3 million, according to some estimates.
The emigration of highly qualified Canadian personnel across the southern border is widely referred to as the brain drain. While the migration is seemingly low in volume, the loss is considered significant. Recently, the parliament in Ottawa, Canada, took up the issue in a special session. Prime reasons for the Canadian brain drain are lower taxes and a better standard of living in the United States, according to a recent report in the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail. Let's assume you make $100,000 per year.
If someone tells you that you'd pay $22,000 less in taxes if you move to California, it becomes difficult to say no, computer expert Eric Grubel told the newspaper. Grubel, the Globe and Mail's computer expert, left Toronto together with his wife and child to settle in Los Angeles. But Canada's Minister of the Treasury Paul Martin doesn't believe that lower taxes are the reason for the mass migration.
If they were, he says, the tax paradise of the Cayman Islands would be the most densely populated region on Earth. Research institutes, scientists, and analysts examining the brain drain speak instead of an exchange. They point out that the number of people moving to the United States is actually rather small, especially when compared to the number of computer scientists, managers, and engineers moving to Canada from around the world.
Robyn Gordon of the Software Human Resources Council offers another reason for Canada's current lack of skilled personnel: the failure of local universities to educate enough qualified students. (DPA)
Job ads and professional headhunters can't satisfy the demand. Even larger Canadian computer and high-tech firms face labor shortages. The tight job market is pushing up salaries, and companies are regularly offering employees bonus payments and stock options in an effort to attract and retain skilled workers. Although the Canadian Software Human Resources Council recently reported an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent (1.3 million), some 20,000 jobs for programmers remain unfilled.
The competition for qualified employees is intensifying. The Canadian worker shortage has been exacerbated by U.S. companies, which are scouring the Canadian markets to fill some 340,000 top positions in the high-tech industry. If current trends continue, the number of technology positions that need to be filled in the United States over the next three years could rise to 1.3 million, according to some estimates.
The emigration of highly qualified Canadian personnel across the southern border is widely referred to as the brain drain. While the migration is seemingly low in volume, the loss is considered significant. Recently, the parliament in Ottawa, Canada, took up the issue in a special session. Prime reasons for the Canadian brain drain are lower taxes and a better standard of living in the United States, according to a recent report in the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail. Let's assume you make $100,000 per year.
If someone tells you that you'd pay $22,000 less in taxes if you move to California, it becomes difficult to say no, computer expert Eric Grubel told the newspaper. Grubel, the Globe and Mail's computer expert, left Toronto together with his wife and child to settle in Los Angeles. But Canada's Minister of the Treasury Paul Martin doesn't believe that lower taxes are the reason for the mass migration.
If they were, he says, the tax paradise of the Cayman Islands would be the most densely populated region on Earth. Research institutes, scientists, and analysts examining the brain drain speak instead of an exchange. They point out that the number of people moving to the United States is actually rather small, especially when compared to the number of computer scientists, managers, and engineers moving to Canada from around the world.
Robyn Gordon of the Software Human Resources Council offers another reason for Canada's current lack of skilled personnel: the failure of local universities to educate enough qualified students. (DPA)