Vancouver's problem isn't the house prices. The problem is to a large extent caused by the author of this piece, the Hootsuite CEO. The few tech companies in vancouver don't pay. They expect the city to provide them a steady flow of over-educated 20-somethings willing to work long hours for only slightly more than rent. For the last 15 years the city has provided just that. The complaints now are that those 20-somethings want to own stuff. They want a house. They want to own a dog that isn't left alone 10+ hours every day. They want families. So it is time to let them go and demand the city provide a new flock.
What every company in Vancouver seems to want is an employee who is desperate for work but also independently wealthy. That might seem a conflict but in Vancouver it is normal. There are thousands of young people here who are supported by parents who have enjoyed the rise in house prices. They are desperate for work, but don't much care about the pay because they have support. Hootsuite's problem is that many of those kids are now in their thirties, mom and dad have moved, and they want to have an actual life of their own. That cannot happen at 30k in a city like Vancouver.
(Lets see how long it takes for this comment to hit a nerve. Hoot is a social media company with eyes everywhere.)
This goes for Canadian employers in general, not just those in Vancouver. I'm not sure how they expect to retain talent when they offer on average about half the salary of similar positions in the US when adjusted for currency (and I'm not even talking about SF... Seattle is a 3 hour drive from Vancouver and moving there can easily double your salary with a comparable cost of living), especially since the barrier to entry into the US is practically non-existent for citizens.
Understandably, employers in Canada want to save money by competing only with their Canadian neighbors in terms of salaries, but this attitude seems extremely shortsighted to me, and results in a vicious negative feedback loop: companies offer lower salaries -> low availability of higher tier talent -> companies under-compete -> companies can now only afford lower salaries -> rinse and repeat. I believe this has been having a profound effect on competitiveness of the Canadian tech industry as a whole (see Blackberry/RIM as a prime example of this phenomenon).
As a recent Waterloo grad, I've witnessed the brain-drain first hand. Everyone I know from school who's any good has left for lucrative US positions, and I'll probably be joining them soon.
The US, even Seattle, can be a culture shock for many Canadians. It is a very different country. I know of several people who have fled the US after only a couple years. It generally boils down to race, religion and guns, all of which are radically different on either side of the boarder. It's not that one is better than the other, but that a person raised in one environment can be taken aback by the immediacy of the change.
There's virtually no religion or guns in Seattle. And I'm not sure what race you're talking about, but I can only guess Asian (since Canadian isn't a race!) and even growing up in the 80s half my friends were Asian.
>>> but I can only guess Asian (since Canadian isn't a race!)
That's a perfect example. You've assumed that I meant "race" as meaning there where different races in either country. I mean to speak about the concept of race generally. American's are obsessed with race. It is part of nearly every discussion and aspect of life. In Canada it isn't such a big deal. You don't hear Canadian politicians ever speak of wining "the black vote" or caring that someone is "the first jewish person to win a primary." As a canadian I find such phrases impolite, almost difficult to type.
Look at the new defense minister. If he was named to head the US DOD FoxNews would scream 24/7. In Canada, barely anyone noticed. Those that did did so only because the guy looks like the toughest defense minister on the planet atm.
throws up hands Well, you're the one who brought up race, so I'm not sure what you expected.
I think the problem is that you experience US culture via the media, and you experience Canadian culture in real life AND via the media. I don't feel that everything is about race in the US, but obviously it's a pretty damn big deal in the media right now because of globally-known events that have happened really recently. Would you have said the same even 5 years ago?
In a bar in France one time, a group of drunk Canadian women started chatting me up, and the more drunk of the group kept going on and on about how terribly obsessed with celebrities all of us Americans were. She went on and on for 20 minutes about how it's all we care about and all we talk about. Leaving aside the irony of the situation, she refused to listen when I said I simply don't care, it's not a part of my life, and it's not a part of the lives of anyone I know.
But that's what you get when your biggest impression of a place is from its media. That's not to say that it doesn't reflect something real, just that it's not the whole picture.
There's a bit more religion. I haven't been able to walk through Seattle downtown without some angry person with a sign and a megaphone threatening infidels with hellfire, unless they repent, and accept the Lord as their saviour.
Yeah, I walked through Super Bowl city in SF last week and found these megaphone people. You forget they exist until a big event comes up, then they come out of the woodwork.
The tech companies in Vancouver haven't increased pay in step with skyrocketing housing. If you can find data on employee pay in the tech industry (good luck) you'd find it'd be fairly consistent. Compared to housing prices in Vancouver, you'd likely be looking at hockey stick growth. That's the disconnect.
If Hootsuite paid minimum wage, but cost-to-live was free, then it's a really good deal for developers.
Besides, you're ignoring the rest of the local economy. Tech is only a small part, and fixing it for one small sector isn't going to do much on a macro scale.
>>> Tech is only a small part, and fixing it for one small sector isn't going to do much on a macro scale.
Very convenient. Not attempting to fix a problem until everyone else is onboard is a great way of not doing anything. If tech companies want to retain talent, pay for it. Don't lambaste the city or the economy. There is nothing more hypocritical than a CEO of a profitable company complaining about retention. If you are profitable then you can afford to pay your people more. Complain about the city when you cannot find the people needed to make ends meet, not when they are inconveniently expensive.
It solve the crisis for the people you pay. It allows them to live rather than move elsewhere. If all employers did the same, then it wouldn't really be a crisis.
Man, lots of parallels to game-dev here. You see an almost similar problem, albiet that it means the average career is ~3 years instead of being a geographical migration.
I used to work in the Vancouver film industry. I remember an interview with some of the Stargate people where they laughed at the fact that most of the CG guys working on the shows final years (SG Atlantis) were in diapers when SG1 started. As soon as the novelty wore off and they wanted pay, everyone left. Anyone who thinks actresses age quickly in Hollywood, look at the teenagers who work in CG.
What every company in Vancouver seems to want is an employee who is desperate for work but also independently wealthy. That might seem a conflict but in Vancouver it is normal. There are thousands of young people here who are supported by parents who have enjoyed the rise in house prices. They are desperate for work, but don't much care about the pay because they have support. Hootsuite's problem is that many of those kids are now in their thirties, mom and dad have moved, and they want to have an actual life of their own. That cannot happen at 30k in a city like Vancouver.
(Lets see how long it takes for this comment to hit a nerve. Hoot is a social media company with eyes everywhere.)