Canada's tech talent is taking off – how can companies attract and retain workers?

Canada’s tech industry labour markets are growing quickly, as major tech firms eye Toronto as a growing hub – with some experts calling it the “next Silicon Valley” — along with Vancouver and Montreal.

In addition, AI technology is becoming a more urgent concern even for non-tech companies, and with the huge rise in remote work, Canadian companies must compete with global and U.S. employers that can offer higher wages.

So, how can HR leaders in Canada attract and retain valuable tech talent?

Colin Yasukochi, Executive Director of commercial real estate giant CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, offered insight into what tech workers are looking for in a job, and how HR can meet those needs as cities large and small race to grow their tech sectors.

“The innovation, the high-paying jobs, it's really the future of economies around the world, is to go more into the digital world and drive the change in innovation there,” Yasukochi said. “That's been going on for quite some time, tech hubs have grown and expanded across the world and Canada's been a huge beneficiary because of its proximity to the U.S., and a lot of major U.S. companies have large presences in Canada.

“The cost is significantly lower in Canada, and when you measure that relative to the quality of skills that you get in Canada, it represents a tremendous value.”

Toronto a main North American tech hub

Yasukochi’s team at the centre released their Scoring Tech Talent 2023 report in July 2023, analysing tech markets globally. They found that Toronto added the most tech jobs between 2017 and 2022 at 63,800 jobs – second only to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Montreal was next with 51,500 new tech jobs, and Canadian cities topped the list of cities with the highest tech job growth rates: Vancouver (69%), Calgary (61%) the Waterloo Region (52%) and Edmonton (45%).

Most recently, Unilever and McKinsey & Company have both recently announced they will be establishing AI innovation labs in the city. Yasukochi attributes this to Canadian universities offering tech programs, and friendlier immigration policies than in the U.S.

“As an example, whether it's University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, they have educational programs around tech and artificial intelligence,” said Yasukochi. “A lot of the companies who are hiring those people want to be in those markets so that they can hire those graduates and even work with the universities as they develop and refine their technical programs.”

Larger context to tech work

Tech workers want to feel their work has meaning, too, Yasukochi shared, and this is a key element for HR to take into account when they are looking for tech talent to hire and retain.

Younger workers especially, he said, are seeking meaningful work, even if their role is technical. So, rather than focusing on the technical elements of a particular role, HR should also include the larger context or goals of the company’s mission, and how their work fits into it.

“Especially the younger groups in the workforce are very interested in what they're doing in terms of what the outcomes are … they're mission oriented. So that's always a selling point, as opposed to, ‘you're going to do computer programming,’” Yasukochi said.

“The other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people acquire these tech skills. They may not necessarily have gotten them in college, they may be going to coding boot camps or doing continuing education in addition to their normal work.”

What this means is that seeking out internal talent and upskilling them into the tech roles they are needing is a valuable option for HR.”

Internal tech hiring through upskilling

Yasukochi recommends assessing the internal workforce for employees who have skills and are interested in transitioning to technical roles, and supporting them through educational programs and upskilling.

“You're basically having your homegrown tech talent, which is easier to for you to fill those roles, and necessarily, if you have to compete with the major tech companies who can afford to pay a lot more,” he said.

Additionally, he advises HR to take advantage of their local market and to nurture relationships with nearby universities or other institutions that are training tech talent. If the organization is in a smaller market, headhunting for talent who are originally from that small market can also be effective.

“A person who went to work in Toronto, they're a good candidate to come back to their smaller hometown to work, and we actually saw a lot of that during the pandemic in the sense that a lot of people from Southern California were up in Silicon Valley in the Bay Area working, and then during the pandemic they went back to Southern California to work from home so they'd be closer to their family, and then some of them never went back,” Yasukochi said. “Maybe you're a candidate to come back because you have an attachment to that location.”

Offer remote and hybrid work for tech workers

According to the CBRE report, working from home more than in the office is still the industry standard, although fully remote work has declined since 2021 as employers bring back office work requirements.

But hybrid and remote work is a must-have for tech workers, Yasukochi said.

“Certainly, from what we've seen, offering hybrid and flexible working arrangements is something of an attractor to a lot of the workforce, as opposed to being in the office five days a week,” said Yasukochi.

“Even to some extent fully remote isn't necessarily super popular either because people do want a connection with their co-workers. Just having flexibility, I think, is a is a big deal.”