Comment by randomdata | Hacker News Reader

Comment by randomdata | Hacker News Reader

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> Collectively, the tech industry in Canada would reap great long-term benefits from offering salaries that are competitive with those in the US. But companies acting in short-term self-interest only try to pay their employees the bare minimum they can get away with

What is the benefit (other than, like most people, wishing that you could make more money)? The only thing I can think of is that you believe people who bring something extra special to a business expect more, but those specific people are already paid more than the typical tech worker because they bring something special that is worth paying more for.

For tech people in general, the pay is low, relatively speaking, because the market is saying that Canada does not need more tech people. That is, compared to the US which has a much greater need for more tech professionals; we're still a long way from sales clerk-level overabundance of labour.

In Canada there are fewer tech jobs overall, while being a society that puts intense social pressure on its youth to focus on getting jobs like these. There's a reason Canada is named the most educated nation on earth and it's precisely why the pay is comparatively low for these types of jobs.

If we want higher pay we either need a lot more tech work, or fewer people willing and able to work in the tech industry.

In case I wasn't being clear enough, by benefits, I meant benefits from the perspective of the Canadian tech industry, not necessarily from the perspective of Canadian society as a whole (that's a much more complex and nuanced subject, one that I haven't made up my mind on myself, and your points certainly seem valid).

And the most obvious such benefit I can think of is slowing and/or reversing the longstanding trend of the Canadian tech industry losing some of its best talent to the US because of salary disparity.

> And the most obvious benefit I can think of is slowing and/or reversing the longstanding trend of the Canadian tech industry losing some of its best talent to the US because of salary disparity.

The best talent that offers something special has no trouble attracting far more than $80,000/year in Canada. The people being offered $80,000/year are not the top talent that you speak of. That is an average, representing the average.

And for average people, that's a feature to see them leave the country for places that need them more. Again, we simply don't have enough work in Canada for all the tech people Canada is producing. We, as a society, put intense pressure on our youth to strive for careers like these and as a result we are pumping them out at rate that is well beyond the actual need for them (domestically).

If everyone who is capable of tech work that came up in Canada remained in Canada, the job would be quickly approaching minimum wage for an average worker. The fact that we have so many leaving for the US is the only thing that has allowed us to maintain something as a high as $80,000 average tech salaries.

> The best talent has no trouble attracting far more than $80,000/year. I'm mediocre at best and have had no trouble attracting far more than that amount, in rural Canada no less. The people being offered $80,000/year are not the top talent that you speak of.

I was simply giving my own past offers as an anecdote to illustrate the cost-benefit analysis of why someone in that situation might choose to leave Canada. I was decidedly junior at the time, having just graduated, and by no means was I trying to claim anything about my own level of talent.

It seems like you may have read too much into that part of my post. Similarly, the quoted piece of your post above reads to me a lot like a thinly veiled ad-hominem, but I digress.

It sounds like there's at least one part of my chain of reasoning that you disagree with: that the size of the tech job market in Canada can potentially grow in concert with the Canadian tech industry's competitiveness relative to the US, and that the Canadian tech industry's competitiveness can improve relatively as a result of keeping more of its talent from leaking into the US.

If that's the case I think it's best if we can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

> and by no means was I trying to claim anything about my own level of talent.

I did not realize we were talking about you? It is simply that the average figure of $80,000 given earlier represents average. The nature of average means that there will be values that are higher. That is where your top talent lies, mathematically. Average tech people lie at the average.

> Similarly, the quoted piece of your post above reads to me a lot like a thinly veiled ad-hominem

I feel that you may have read too much into my comment. I have no animosity towards you for sharing your point of view, and I am not sure why I ever would. My comment wasn't directed at anyone, especially not you. I was only looking at the situation mathematically, as described above. But, it is the undeniable reality that not all people are equal. Even you recognized that top talent exists. I'm not sure why we would change our tune at this point?

> that the size of the tech job market in Canada can potentially grow in concert with the Canadian tech industry's competitiveness relative to the US, and that the Canadian tech industry's competitiveness can improve relatively as a result of keeping more of its talent from leaking into the US.

I'm just not clear how "if you build it, they will come" applies here. We've built the workforce and the work hasn't come. As a result, people are opting to leave for the US where the work is needed. If the tech industry utilized the top talent, and even the not so top talent, these people would have never left. You might have a good point here, and I am interested in learning about it, but I'm afraid I still haven't quite grasped how you think this would actually play out in the real world.

It remains that Canada produces more tech people than it needs. What else can they do but find work where it is needed? Should they sit around and do nothing while the Canada tech industry someday eventually finds work for them to do?

> I did not realize we were talking about you?

I re-read my original comment again and still think it was pretty clear, but I realize how easy it may be to gloss over things like that in reading, and in hindsight it was definitely in bad taste on my part to assume malice and respond with a snarky comment like I did, so I apologize.

> I'm just not clear how "if you build it, they will come" applies here. We've built the workforce and the work hasn't come. As a result, people are opting to leave for the US where the work is needed. If the tech industry utilized the top talent, and even the not so top talent, these people would have never left. You might have a good point here, and I am interested in learning about it, but I'm afraid I still haven't quite grasped how you think this would actually play out in the real world.

It sounds like we're at two different sides of the same chicken and egg problem.

My view is that if we had more competitive salaries, those who have left Canada may have chosen to stay and help build more successful Canadian tech companies, which would then make the tech industry as a whole more competitive relative to the US, and therefore our job market would become less saturated and we'd be able to afford to pay for better salaries and employ more talent.

You seem to have started at the other end of that chain of reasoning and worked backwards, i.e. our job market is saturated, and thus we can't employ more talent without deflating salaries further, etc, etc.

I don't think either view is more or less valid than the other. Like any other chicken and egg problem it really depends on your starting point.

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