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ziont

its already happened here in Vancouver, BC.

indian tech workers make up a huge part of startups to pre-IPO companies.

having said that glassdoor reviews show them to be awful places to work-shit pay, shit code, that turns to overtime.

I know one friend who was pretty much ousted by indian managers.

just don't expect new arrivals to respect or even be conscious of Canadian cultures or customs.

i hope they eventually learn and integrate here however.

not so great for tech workers already in canada.

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I respect your experience, but mine has been very different. My immigrant Indian colleagues have been competent and pleasant in general, and I'm talking of dozens of people.

Customs vary around the world, even within a nation, and we must all make an effort to communicate our expectations and boundaries.

> Question: If there will supposedly be 200,000 tech vacancies in Canada by 2020, why are tech salaries in Canada so low compared to the US

Most of the smaller, newer tech co's are sweat shops. As companies grow and mature a lot of them get better at treating their employees.

I have no idea why we in tech allow companies to make us work more than "X" hours.

Plural of anecdote is not data, and certainly not when you are insinuating "indian managers" in particular to be worse than others and "indians" in particular creating toxic work environment.

No, even a singular anecdote is data.

Having worked for a 99% Indian/Pakistani company in tech myself, I can confirm that 'it's really different'. We were treated well, but when we were not ... it was in odd ways. And can confirm salaries were generally lower as so many people were in visa-limbo or migration situations, the company used it to it's advantage. It was a slide on the deck to investors. Which is maybe not so nice, but the logic makes sense: company of largely newcomers, lead by newcomers, uses cultural aspect of migration sensitivity to their advantage.

Also, curiously, though the notion of Indians and Pakistanis coming together to form a successful enterprise is amazing and progressive ... a lot of the 'class based' issues were imported as well. The execs were all from elite Indian Subcontinent families.

Ok, I can agree to the fact that companies may take advantage of immigrants like others have suggested. However, what the original comment said was specifically against Indians which sounds more like a racial bias (and for some reason it sounds more so, if there isn't any salary discrimination happening in company for immigrants).

Yes, large portions of tech immigrants are Indians, but not all immigrants are Indians. This is typical correlation doesn't imply causation mistake. Considering, a huge majority of Indians in tech it shouldn't be less common than otherwise. Doesn't mean Indians managers are mostly bad. The ones I had in US were great, and includes the best I've had.

Not sure why you would expect a "company of largely newcomers, lead by newcomers" to pay higher than newcomer-salary. At the end of the day, everyone gets what they pay for.

I don’t think hiring based on ethnicity is a legal investment strategy in Canada. Even if it was written down by some idiots on a slide.

Not ethnicity, the slide would say more or less "we have a deep network of foreigners who are thrilled to come here and work for very competitive salaries, so our burning rate will be lower than the competition".

I've seen this happen also in Silicon Valley, I've personally participated in conversations with startup founders quoting their ability to tap into cheap labor under the form of "talented, naive and visa-handcuffed immigrants" a major competitive advantage.

Oh, it absolutely is everywhere. (FYI labour arbitrage has been going on for thousands of years, it's a thing).

Not so much 'ethnicity' but 'visa leverage'.

Sun Microsystems and others faced scrutiny during layoffs for protecting H1Bs over American workers.

Given the leverage that companies have, they often pay less. Also - foreign workers will generally have a lower salary requirement if they come from poorer countries.

This is also the case in Alberta Oil fields where investors try to get temp permit visas for foreign workers (China, Philipines) because hiring Canadians is brutally expensive. It becomes de-facto ethnic because the workers tend to come from specific regions.

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