(Whoops, meant to call the logistics one opinion/observation number 47.)
Conversation
48. I don't know of any good statistics on this, but my impression is that Canadians are less likely to move for work than Americans.
A good chunk of people I know in the US "moved around a lot for [parents'] work", whereas basically everyone I know in Canada stuck to one metro.
1
1
49. Relatedly, a significant majority of e.g., my high school classmates moved back to the Toronto area after graduating from university. My American college friends are pretty well distributed across the wealthy coastal parts of the US.
1
I used to think that this was another consequence of how concentrated the Canadian population is, but now I'm less sure. I don't know that many Canadians who grew up between even two metro areas.
This might just be my filter bubble, so I'd be curious to see hard statistics.
1
50. In honour of being half-way done, here's my single biggest puzzle about the Canadian economy:
Why are high-tech industries (Silicon Valley-type "tech", biotech, pharma, etc.) so underdeveloped in Canada, compared to the US?
1
1
51. Let's look at the information tech/"Silicon Valley" tech industry first, since I've though the most about it.
On the surface, Canada feels like it should be a *better* place than the United States for the tech industry to flourish.
1
1
52. The tech industry is largely built through startups displacing big companies, and Canada has a lot going for it when it comes to starting a startup. Single payer healthcare, a more robust social safety net (especially for the young), and lower wages all seem useful.
1
53. The tech industry requires a ton of highly skilled immigrant labour, and Canada's immigration system is much friendlier to skilled immigrants than the American one.
If you're highly skilled and thinking about moving to Canada, check out Express Entry: canada.ca/en/immigration
1
1
54. Even apart from immigration, Canada has tons of tech talent. Silicon Valley is filled with Canadian-educated engineers: if you look closely you can spot many of them by their Iron Rings: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring.
1
1
Something like 40% of the graduating CS class at the University of Waterloo ends up working in the United States. I'm told that a super high status thing for Waterloo CS students is getting a co-op/internship at every one of the FAANGs.
Canada has loads of technical talent!
2
Addendum: this number might be closer to 85% 😱
Quote Tweet
~85% of Waterloo SE grads move to the US on graduating*.
Multiple US metros end up with more Waterloo grads than all of Canada combined (Bay, Seattle, likely NYC).
Vast majority of this govt. subsidized CS education benefits the US instead of Canada
.
uw-se-2020-class-profile.github.io/profile.pdf
Show this thread
read image description
ALT
read image description
ALT

