Toronto Created More Tech Jobs Than San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington Combined Last Year (bloomberg.com)

Toronto's tech scene is so hot the city created more jobs than the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle and Washington, D.C., combined last year, while leapfrogging New York in a ranking of "talent markets." From a report: Toronto was the fastest-growing tech-jobs market in 2017, according to CBRE Group's latest annual survey, released Tuesday. The city saw 28,900 tech jobs created, 14 percent more than in 2016, for a total of more than 241,000 workers, up 52 percent over the past five years, CBRE said. Downtown, tech accounted for more than a third of demand for office space. Canada's biggest city took fourth place in "tech talent," a broad measure of competitiveness, pushing New York down a notch and coming in just after the Bay Area, Seattle and the U.S. capital. CBRE ranked 50 markets across North America, using measures such as talent supply, concentration, education and cost as well as outlooks for job and rent growth for both offices and apartments. The real estate services firm cited some 5 million technology workers in the U.S. and more than 830,000 in Canada, across all sectors.

Comments

Not a surprise

[Mashiki]

There's an old joke in Canada, that Toronto believes it's the centre of the universe(or at least Canada). It's not far from the truth, every major company in Canada is either fully or partially headquartered there or within 150km of it. For tech, you're guaranteed front access to the best place in the country for internet as well. 151 Front St, basically every ISP connects there, and every data center in the country has a massive presence there. It's the heart of money in the country, seat of provincial government, and within ~5hrs(train), 4-6hrs car to Ottawa. Letting you get all the hobnobbing in that anyone who wants to make connections could care to do.

Downside to Toronto? Nearly 75% of the 1/3 of the population of Canada(Windsor to Ottawa) lives in the area. Your workers need massive pay to live there. The median housing price is $1.58M, but the average worker makes less then $60k/year. In my area, the average income is $43k/year(that's around 140km from Toronto), but the housing prices are well over $400k/year these days. There's a lot of commuting from London, Woodstock, Kitchener and Waterloo and Milton(from the south) into Toronto now as people have been priced out of housing, and that's *in* the tech sector. Renting? Ha good luck. When I was living on Broadview(that's just off the Danforth where the shooting was a couple of days ago back in '06ish), I was paying $1200/mo in a basement apartment and that was a deal. It's around $3800/mo right now, worse in other areas. Living in an apt. building, that has a literal roach problem can run you $4.2k/mo right in the downtown area.

On top of that living in Canada is expensive. Right now you're looking at $1.24-1.46/L($4.50-6/gal) for gas, you're going to drive a lot. Electricity during peak(8-20h) is $0.185kWh. Despite "free healthcare" you're gonna be waiting a long time for surgery, say 1.5yrs for cataract, 1-2mo for cancer diagnosis, another 1-3mo for starting treatment after that diagnosis. Up to 12mo for bypass surgery. On top of that, medications and dental aren't covered so you'll want to get supplemental health insurance from a company like greenshield.ca or blueshield.ca that'll help but figure $150-300mo/person. Many companies have some type of plan, but there's plenty that don't. Don't hope to have a family doctor, plenty of people don't. Some have been waiting 10 years to get one. Also don't hope on finding a specialist for anything nearby, you might have to drive up to 400km even living in Toronto to get one. Whole bunch of stuff I'm forgetting as well.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in downtown Toronto. You can rent a nice condo in a new building downtown for $1900/month or maybe even a bit less ($1600). My sister has rented apartments in other parts of the city for $1200/month. Your $3800/month for a basement apartment quote is way off!

As for housing, I get junk mail from real estate agents regularly. You can buy downtown codos between $430K - $900K.

Housing prices and rent prices have gone up a lot over the last few years, sure, but it's not as bad as you say it is.

Re:Not a surprise

[Mashiki]

Um...yes. That's Canada. Not Ontario, this is Ontario.

Here's an example from Ontario, of a 427 days Remember that the ONTARIO average is 217 days, and Toronto is in Ontario. In Toronto, 270-316 days isn't outside the norm.

Guess who will take credit

[Miles_O'Toole]

Sadly, Ontario just gave a Trumpoid former drug dealer and his fundamentalist Conservative Party a majority government. No doubt they'll claim this is all thanks to them (although they've only been in power for a couple of weeks). And when they blast the provincial debt through the roof with unfunded tax cuts, then sell off taxpayer-owned assets to pretty up the books, they'll blame everybody but themselves. It happened before with a cretinous monster named Mike Harris.

Canadian Hospitality?

[foxalopex]

I have to wonder with anti-everyone almost Trump policies in the US if Tech companies aren't just relocating to Canada because you don't end up in silly situations such as your lead tech speaker being denied at the border due to race issues or something else going wrong in the US such as the Tariff wars that are going on now. Canada has the accessibility from Toronto to International Markets and isn't busy trying to Tariff everything.