Canada’s Tech Workers Shortage A Boon For Immigrants

Canada employment portal, Indeed, reported that start-ups in some of Canada’s largest technology markets – Toronto, Vancouver Montreal and Ottawa – are struggling to grow because they cannot find candidates with the right skill sets. Positions such as Computer Vision Testers, Penetration Testers and Ruby on Rails Developers take the longest to fill and employers are getting desperate.

As estimates suggest the Canadian technology industry will be short by more than 200,000 workers by 2021. The Canadian government is targeting its immigration policy at making it easy to hire important technology workers from abroad. The government’s Global Talent Stream enables candidates in the hardest to fill technology occupations to have their visas and work permits processed in only two weeks.

Canada’s Hardest to Fill Technology Vacancies

	Job title	NOC Code	Percentage of vacancies open for 60 or more days
1	Computer Vision Engineer	2147	56
2	Penetration Tester	2147, 2171, 2281	51
3	Ruby on Rails Developer	2147, 2171, 2172	43
4	Operations Engineer	2141, 2147	41
5	Release Engineer	2173	40
6	C Developer	2175	37
7	Machine Learning Engineer	2132	37
8	System Engineer	0211	35
9	Chief Engineer	0211	34
10	Security Engineer	2171	33

Source: Indeed

Jobs Covered by The Global Talent Stream

For Category B of the Global Talent Stream, employers must hire highly-skilled foreign workers to fill positions in occupations found on the following list:

National Occupations Classification (NOC) code	Occupation	Minimum wage requirement (annual salary)	Minimum wage requirement (hourly rate)
0211	Engineering managers	Prevailing wage	Prevailing wage
0212	Architecture and science managers	Prevailing wage	Prevailing wage
0213	Computer and information systems managers	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2147	Computer engineers (except software engineers and designers)	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
Sub-set of 2161*	Mathematicians and statisticians* Positions for actuaries or related occupations are excluded from this subset.	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2171	Information systems analysts and consultants	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2172	Database analysts and data administrators	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2173	Software engineers and designers	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2174	Computer programmers and interactive media developers	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2175	Web designers and developers	prevailing wage	prevailing wage
2283*	Information systems testing technicians	$78,000 or higher prevailing wage	$37.50 or higher prevailing wage
Sub-set of 5131*	Producer, technical, creative and artistic director and project manager – Visual effects and video gamePosition requires a minimum of five years of experience in the visual effects, video game or animation industries in one or a combination of the following roles: producer, technical director, creative director, artistic director or project manager, with experience in at least one or more of the following skills relevant to the visual effects, video game or animation industries: surfacing and look development; character or simulation rigging; matte painting; or technical pipeline development and application for visual effects, video games, or animation production.	$75,000 or higher prevailing wage	$36.06 or higher prevailing wage
Sub-set of 5241*	Digital Media and DesignPosition requires a minimum of five years of experience in at least one of the following digital media design skills: 3D modeling, virtual reality, augmented reality, digital media animation, levels editing for digital media design, software editing for digital media design, pipeline software development or applications relevant for digital media design.	$80,000 or higher prevailing wage	$38.46 or higher prevailing wage

Individuals who succeed in obtaining temporary resident permits under the Global Talent Stream can make the transition to permanent residence in six months via the Express Entry system.

As part of its commitment to attract and retain technology skilled workers Canada also has a path for Internation students to become Canadian permanent residents. See International Students – Path to Citizenship.