There are 1000's of underemployed CS Grads earning a pittance compared to their American counterparts. You get access to a large talent pool that makes less than what you would pay an H1B person.
ATM there is about a 37% difference in CAD-USD. So that is just a bonus.
It is also Canada's biggest city and business capital. The only real cons is the price of real estate and high taxes but Google has all kinds of money so that shouldn't be an obstacle. There is also the an issue of poor transportation infra but since this will be developed downtown that shouldn't be an issue either.
I am sure the Provincial/Federal Gov will throw in quite a few enticements since there is an election coming up and they are desperate for some kind of meaningful employment gains.
It's a nice city to visit but you have to be wealthy to live there. It's Canada's version of NYC (a much, much, much smaller version).
I had to try and explain this to my girlfriend and her visiting sister last night. They're from Victoria and Vancouver and want us to move there.
I can barely afford to live in Toronto on my salary, never mind Vancouver and the cost of moving across the country. To my knowledge -- in spite of the higher cost of living -- Vancouver-based software professionals don't make any more than they do here.
That and most people here still equate software = computers = IT department = "Can you fix my laptop?"/"Why doesn't the projector work?"
It's not that they cannot, it is that they do not want to. Seriously, any software dev saying they "cannot live" on their salary is simply out of touch with the rest of the world. Not to say they should take a below market salary, but comparing a hyper-crazy salary of SF to Toronto is unreasonable.
My immediate reaction was to want to say this is a little harsh, but it's actually fair.
I don't suffer. I share a 1 bed apartment with my girlfriend. Between the two of us I'd say we pull in ~$100k. Our rent is $1650 and we rent our parking space for $150. These days, it looks like a steal. I make rent, eat healthy, can afford transit and clothing and the odd night out, but doing all of that and saving any money is a good stretch right now.
But there are complications. We paid even less for a 2 bed condo we rented and were happy as hell, but condos have owners and I've experienced them visiting to have a look at the place they bought but never visited and decide to move in and kindly ask us to leave (with notice). Because of the housing market here, rents increase year-over-year by a not insignificant margin. To find a new 1bed downtown that isn't in a basement we're looking at $2k now. Next year it may be more if the bubble can't be curbed.
My salary doesn't go up at that margin. I'm also wearing a heap of student loans that are held by a bank, with a small share in OSAP (Ontario-Canada Student Loans). The bank treats student loans differently than the government, where there is no amity or relief on offer. Had to take this on to get into school because during the Harper years belts tightened and I fell into the narrow margin of my father made enough money to not warrant OSAP considering me at-need, but nowhere near enough to help me through any of the expense of higher education. I'm from a very rural area, so there were no local options.
TL;DR: much of my background of circumstance will better explain what I said, and might make me seem a little less crass and out of touch as you put it. In a vacuum, I agree. I have never lived in a vacuum, it's been a long road to where I am and longer to get where I want to go.
For reference, the average salary for a software engineer, in Toronto, is close to $71,000 CAD/year. Taking into account the current CAD/USD exchange rate, brings it to approximately $52,000 USD/year.
Each country has different costs, taxes and otherwise, for both employees and employers. The effects of those costs have not been included with those figures.
For reference on the cost side, the median home in San Francisco is $1.16M[1] (USD). The mean home in Toronto is $921K[2] (CAD; about $674K USD). Median figures are, unfortunately, not publicly provided in Canada, but given the nature of home valuations (especially in Toronto where you can find multi-million dollar mansions), a comparable amount is presumably quite a bit lower than that.
Most my friends in SF pay between $2.5-4k USD (3.4k-5.46k CAD) per month for their apartments [tell me if i'm wrong?]. I personally rent out two 1BR upper-scale apartments in downtown Toronto [one loft space for $1.9k CAD ($1.39k USD) and the other a 1BR+Den for $2.275k CAD ($1.66k USD)].
When it comes to lifestyle, money generally goes way further in Toronto than it does in SF; you're getting paid less for a reason.
Oh also...enjoy your free healthcare [PS i'm Australian, so don't go thinking I'm a crazy maple syrup drinking Canadian who just loves this place because i was born here]
As a Torontonian transplant living in NYC: the rent is higher, but the same or smaller % of a much larger figure can still get you ahead by _quite_ a bit. You are simply wrong about the cost of living explaining the salary difference. It is very, very, very good to be working here and not in Toronto.
New York certainly Trumps (thought this needed some comic relief) Toronto in many ways, but I am guessing you're probably making a claim based on a salary that I suspect isn't as common as you would like it to be. People I previously worked with who did the exact same thing regularly talk about how expensive it is and that they are struggling to get by. I've had the same option on the table and despite my disinterest living in the US right now, I've never been able to make the math work. Taxes are not that low, especially when you add back healthcare, and it's so expensive to live the same quality of life that I might be able to short term improve my cash flow, but if I sacrifice I can also do that here?!
I'm from Toronto, good senior engineers that aren't working in a sweat shop make $100k CAD or more, you can rent a nice apartment downtown for $2k per month.
I would say, maybe it's because I'm working in a sweatshop then, but I make barely over half of that in a mid-level/senior dev position in operations in a rather large digital media company. I've heard stories of positions that offer more but I don't think they're as plentiful as its made out to be... (frankly they outsource a lot of dev work and in spite of the larger trend in digital media, want to stay far away from much in-house dev).
maybe I should just be looking for new work.
There's also the emotional expense involved, but that's everywhere. Can't say I'd be willing to go in for $100k CAD doing DB or web work at say X-Syngery Unicorp Inc who might supply toilet paper dispensers to all junior-level and public restrooms in Suchacorp's east tower.
It's basically a matter of who got there first. NIMBYism blocks new construction. But rent control keeps things cheap for long term residents. And if you bought a house 20 years ago you're in a good spot.
ATM there is about a 37% difference in CAD-USD. So that is just a bonus.
It is also Canada's biggest city and business capital. The only real cons is the price of real estate and high taxes but Google has all kinds of money so that shouldn't be an obstacle. There is also the an issue of poor transportation infra but since this will be developed downtown that shouldn't be an issue either.
I am sure the Provincial/Federal Gov will throw in quite a few enticements since there is an election coming up and they are desperate for some kind of meaningful employment gains.
It's a nice city to visit but you have to be wealthy to live there. It's Canada's version of NYC (a much, much, much smaller version).