During these challenging times, Canada is experiencing a shortage of tech talent, and as a result, Canadian employers are trying to bring foreign talent to the country.
As per the report brought out by Innovation Economy Council (December 2020), titled Magnetic North: How Canada Holds its Own in the Global Race for Innovation Talent, around three million jobs have been wiped out in Canada due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Moreover, the countrywide lockdown implemented to contain the spread of the virus has badly affected the occupations in the information and technology sector as well. However, as an exception, the number of STEM jobs has turned the corner quite quickly.
Furthermore, there are more STEM jobs in the Canadian market compared to the number before the coronavirus outbreak. To be specific, STEM-related employment has increased by 8.7% across the country from February to October 2020. Engineers, programmers, and other tech workers are some of the jobs belonging to this category.
One of the possible reasons behind the consistency in the tech jobs is the industry was prepared to transform online, giving freedom to employees to work remotely.
Moreover, foreign companies are also setting up their foot in Canada to attract tech talent there, considering that employees can work from anywhere. Google and Facebook are the perfect examples of the prior statement, as these tech giants have been operating in Canada for more than the last five years.
Canada, like always, has been evolving itself as a tech hub. For example, in early 2019, Gatik, a software company, set up a research hub in Toronto to embrace the local talent from the University of Toronto and Waterloo.
Canada looks forward to bringing new immigrants to boost the economy.
Though there are countless job opportunities in the tech sector, most Canadian graduates prefer to move to the South looking for higher salaries in the United States.
Recently, the University of Toronto and Brock University had their researchers conduct a study, which shows that almost 25% of STEM students who graduated from the best Canadian universities are employed overseas.
Furthermore, Canada ranks third, following India and China in obtaining H1-B visas to the United States. H1-B visas are granted to skilled and talented foreign nationals. However, U.S. President Donald Trump deferred the H1-B program the early last year, stating the COVID-19 outbreak as the reason, which has put the program at risk.
Taking advantage of the suspension of the H1-B program in the U.S., many Canadian tech companies have been making attempts to attract many U.S.-based tech workers to Canada.
As many Canadian tech graduates prefer to move overseas for employment, Canada always keeps looking for the right candidates to fill in those vacancies. To meet the workforce requirements, Canada welcomes a huge number of STEM students and highly skilled foreign workers every year as immigrants.
Moreover, Canada has recently made an announcement that the country is expecting 400,000 new permanent residents annually from the year 2021 to 2023. Undoubtedly, Canada needs new immigrants to keep its economy moving.
The Global Talent Stream (GTS) – Fast-track route for the talented pool
The Global Talent Stream (GTS) is a federal immigration program that allows Canadian companies to lure and bring highly-skilled temporary workers from foreign countries on a fast-track basis. An employer must acquire an LMIA (Labour Market Impact Assessment) to meet the eligibility for this program. An LMIA proves that the employer was not able to find a suitable candidate for the job from the local talent pool. Normally, the procedure takes around two weeks.
Once the employer obtains an LMIA, the candidate can apply for Canadian immigration through the GTS. The processing time for these applications is just two weeks. In short, it can be said that it takes only four weeks for a foreign national to immigrate to Canada through the Global Talent Stream.
