Canada is home to a vibrant and diverse tech sector and often a nation ranked in top numbers of countries with best IT and technical scope. Unfortunately, with all good tech scope and ever-green job market, the nation falls behind in justifying the vacancies with right IT skills. “New applications are creating jobs that were unimaginable just years ago. Ten years ago, there were no smartphone app developers, or cloud computing engineers or social media managers” said the Governor of Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz in a speech at the Queen University in Kingston-Ontario. “Immigrants have a key role to play in helping grow the Canadian economy and off-setting the country’s growing shortage of skilled labour“, he added, signifying the crucial role of immigration today in bringing right talent to the desks of Canadian tech companies.
Growing numbers in Canadian IT hub come as good news to Tech professionals
Biggest sector: The Information Technology sector of Canada is by far the biggest sector, employing nearly 900,000 professionals annually, for all its domains. The country in the recent years invested over $9.1 billion on innovation and technological growth. Having grown faster than any other sector on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) since 2013, the Tech sector of Canada is now valued at a $250 billion.
Increasing firms: Since many tech companies in Canada are relatively new startups, there is potential for significant revenue growth within Canada’s tech industry. On a rough estimate, there are nearly 71,000 firms in Canada solely in its Tech sector. This accounts to nearly 6.1% of all Canadian businesses.
Employment prospects: Of the total employment in Canada, 5.6% comes from its Tech sector. While there are over 488,000 professionals already employed in IT jobs, majorly in fields of project management, software development, data analysis, information security, etc. the shortage is still huge. By 2020, a vacancy of over 216,000 tech professionals is to be filled in all its domains. This means that till 2020, Tech professionals will remain a guaranteed favorite of Canada immigration.
Average income: Immigrants in the Tech sector earn more than any of the professionals that work in Canada. Tech professionals earn a salary as high as $66950 on an average, whereas the national average of other sectors is approximately $48,000.
Looking through this lens, Canada’s tech sector is much bigger than our current definitions are able to capture.
Stumbling blocks of Canada become stepping stones to ITians worldwide
One of the biggest hurdles of Canada’s IT sector is a soon-to-retire staff. Of the total employees in Canada, nearly 5,000,000 Canadians will soon retire. A large proportion of this number represents the IT sector. While the Canadian government has introduced several programs and courses to train the younger generation for its sector, the success seems a long journey. With an unprepared youth and an increasing skills gap, Canada needs more ITians through immigration.
LMIA has been an equal hurdle for employers in hiring new talent for their high-tech companies. With increasing constraints and restrictions of LMIA, work permits have become an old-fashion now for employers, and instead, they choose PR visas. As neither a job offer nor LMIA is mandatory in the processing of PR visas, this option has gained more preference than any other pathways to Canada.
From Indian to Canada ITian-in 6 to 12 months
While IT is a favorite profession of Canada, India is marked as a favorite nation. In 2016 and again in 2017, the highest numbers of Canada PR visas were issued to Indian nationals. Canada believes that India has talent and skills that rightly justify the requirements of Canada’s economy. Among the many-many initiatives taken by the Canadian government to invite a large number of Indians and professionals from worldwide in the least span of time, a reducing CRS, tech specific provincial nominations and Global Skills Strategy are prominent ones.
