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There are many articles about moving north to Canada in the news recently. Many H-1B employees feel that it is a great option to apply for Canadian Permanent Residency and become a Canadian citizen in 5 years approximately.
The major cities for IT professionals to settle in Canada are Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.
It snows very less in Vancouver and it a beautiful city to live surrounded by mountains and overlooking the ocean. It is a major hub for Asian Canadians from East Asia, South East Asia and South Asia.
The competition for IT jobs is intense due to higher number of Asian Canadians. A regular house which costs USD 300,000 in Atlanta is roughly USD 1.2 million in Vancouver.
The average salary for a .NET developer in Vancouver is USD 62,000. 40% of this salary is deducted for taxes, social security, government health insurance and other benefits. A married couple doing IT jobs will be unable to pay their home mortgage even after 30 years at the current housing prices in Vancouver.
Calgary and Edmonton are always dependent on the volatile oil and gas industry which makes them very average markets for IT professionals.
Ottawa is the capital city and has a lot of federal IT jobs like Washington DC. However most Canadian federal jobs require security clearance and require 5 years of residency in Canada before applying for security clearances.
The first language in Montreal is French and you will be a second-class citizen for the rest of your life if you feel that you are too old to learn a new language.
Toronto and Greater Toronto Metropolitan Area are the best areas for IT professionals to settle down. However, the housing costs in Toronto have increased significantly over the past few years.
The competition for IT jobs is very fierce due to the increasing number of new Canadian Permanent Residents who prefer to settle in Toronto every year. If you have lived in Southern United States and planning to migrate to Toronto, then you are not prepared for the brutal Toronto winters.
The Canadian job market is approximately ten times smaller than the US job market. IT jobs are scarce in many technologies and domains like ERP (SAP, Oracle Apps), Data Warehousing (Cognos, Informatica), Business Analytics (Tableau, Pentaho) and Middleware (WebSphere).
People should search in popular Canadian job boards if their technology and domain expertise is in demand in Canada unless they don’t mind working in a convenience store or gas station or motel for a long time.
Canadian employers are wary of foreign work experience including US work experience. They prefer to hire candidates with 3-4 years of Canadian work experience at the minimum.
It is always advisable to have PERM and I-140 approved in USA, before even thinking of Canadian Permanent Residency. This gives the option to come back to USA later in TN visa or H-1B visa and start your green card process again without losing your priority date.
Most US Senators and House members are now aware of the per country quota issue for green cards and the per country quota will be soon removed as a standalone HR392 bill or as a provision to a comprehensive immigration which deals with DACA and merit-based immigration.
Most H-1B employees with I-140 priority date before 2016 should receive their green cards in 2-3 years if the per country quota is removed.
H-1B employees should research all these issues before they decide to apply for Canadian Permanent Residency. The grass always seems to be greener on the other side of the border.
We request H-1B employees who are subject to an imminent layoff to send their resume to [email protected] and we will help them find a new employer who can sponsor them.
Press note released by: Indian Clicks, LLC
