Paywalled. Not sure how to feel about this. Toronto has changed substantially in the last decade and a half, going from a place where property was affordable and socialized resources like community centres and healthcare were accessible to a place that's overcrowded and worse in many ways if you were used to the high quality of life it used to offer. I don't see a silver lining in a potentially higher salary because it will just be captured by landlords / rising cost of living. I also don't think all these competing companies will cause salaries to rise that much since its much easier to bring immigrants over here and improve the pool of job candidates. My company in particular has doubled the people in our office with ex H1-Bs that have been converted to something like TFWs I imagine.
The only positive I see is the potential of working on something I like more from a subject matter point of view.
Former immigrant to the uk from the eu, manager, head of and consultant. I feel like your comment should not have been downvoted because it is and understandable worry.
Here is why.
In the uk immigrants from non eu countries, and thus on restrictive work visas (somewhat similar to h1b) usually earned way less than locals or eu citizens because they had no option but to take any offer only to be allowed to stay in the country. Example: ai engineers from south korea would earn 35k gbp a year, while their uk or eu counterparts could earn well above 70k gbp.
Restrictive visas and abusive employers are a wage depressing mix, unfair to both locals and new comers. My guess would be that if your employer underpays your former h1b colleagues then that is not an employer you want to work for because indeed your pay will stay low.
Eu citizens however were free to work without restriction and as such compete on equal terms as locals. Much like in Canada where immigrants under express entry are able to change jobs as they wish, eu citizens could change jobs as they wish. The result was that instead of outsourcing to india or other countries, uk companies suddenly started growing at home as they had plenty of resources. Thus job opportunities and pay went up both for locals and eu immigrants. As a hiring manager, demand was so high that either eu immigrants or locals had to be payed more and more each year.
Similarly, in Canada, the more resources companies will find, the less they will outsource and the more pay will go up over time.
As brexit is biting in and less devs are on the market, some of those companies are now either outsourcing or opening new branches in other eu countries to hire the same people as they would have in the uk, simply because there are not enough devs left. This means less opportunities for locals.
Another thing is that more devs, means more ideas floating around, and that means more skills you can get.
It can be frightening and if there are many abusive employers and restrictive visas wages can go down, but something tells me they will go up as indeed canada is a country with a north american business mindset. And if you mix tech and capital the result will be job and pay growth which i have seen in london/europe. You should embrace this if you want your pay to double in the next 5 years. Mine did in london as when i moved there the “revolution” was only starting and it was an awesome ride.
I am not an optimist. It doesn't matter to me if my salary doubles in the next five years unless it improves my quality of life living here. After seeing the major cities here change so much over the last 15 years, I am convinced that an expanded presence of large tech companies will make things worse in every metric I care about: housing; healthcare; affordable education; transportation; etc. Great, I can afford the latest iPhone! Who cares?
Come to think, what you describe are exactly the issues i had around london. Yay i could get a new iphone, but buying a property would mean an enormous loan and the size of that property would have been tiny. Overcrowding was another issue, trains were filled to the point where people would stick their noses in other peoples armpits, roads jammed, loads of small shops with low quality products, and ofc loads of crime. I ended up leaving, and one option was toronto, but gave up at the thought it might become another london. Left back for my home country, but my nature is to explore and experience new places, it’s just that the thought of yet another london is unbearable. And most tech jobs are centred around such cities. I just dont want to be a part of the tech worker scene that “changes the world and are the best” but cant afford even basic things in life such as owning a decent property with plenty of room for kids to grow up happily. So i am working remote and working on a side project. Maybe once it takes off i will retire in a small city in a developed country and buy a big ass mansion and enjoy life as it should be.
Another good point, re quality of life. In london the quality of life is quite low, despite high salaries. I am wondering if toronto can do something different and learn from mistakes made by other tech boom cities. I.e. how to avoid congestion, how to keep house process at an affordable level, etc. It would be interesting to have tech companies located outside the city centre as a starting point. Of course there is the solution of not welcoming these companies and immigrants, but is there a way their presence can be leveraged for the greater good, by learning from mistakes made by others?
The only positive I see is the potential of working on something I like more from a subject matter point of view.