# IT jobs in Canada!



## rroz (Aug 14, 2012)

Hello, 
I want to know about IT jobs status in Canada....are there good opportunities for BA or other IT skill sets? and which state has more jobs.....


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## Auld Yin (Mar 10, 2009)

rroz said:


> Hello,
> I want to know about IT jobs status in Canada....are there good opportunities for BA or other IT skill sets? and which state has more jobs.....


Canada has Provinces not States. IT skills are not in demand in Canada.


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## GRETZKY427 (Jan 5, 2013)

Auld Yin said:


> Canada has Provinces not States. IT skills are not in demand in Canada.


I to have seen this.

The big 3 cities for IT and Finance are Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver ??? is this correct, which of these 3 cities gives you your best bang for your buck in the cost of living, everything?


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## Liam(at)Large (Sep 2, 2012)

GRETZKY427 said:


> I to have seen this.
> 
> The big 3 cities for IT and Finance are Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver ??? is this correct, which of these 3 cities gives you your best bang for your buck in the cost of living, everything?


This is correct.

Of the three, Toronto would offer the most opportunities. Vancouver is the most expensive to live.


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## GRETZKY427 (Jan 5, 2013)

If Montreal was all english speaking would it slip into number 1 spot or still Toronto all the way.


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## Liam(at)Large (Sep 2, 2012)

GRETZKY427 said:


> If Montreal was all english speaking would it slip into number 1 spot or still Toronto all the way.


Still Toronto...


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## GRETZKY427 (Jan 5, 2013)

Liam(at)Large said:


> Still Toronto...


And then 2nd spot would be Montreal or Vancouver, just curious.


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## Liam(at)Large (Sep 2, 2012)

GRETZKY427 said:


> And then 2nd spot would be Montreal or Vancouver, just curious.


I'd say Vancouver, but, cost of living is higher than Toronto.


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## squeezyb (Mar 12, 2013)

Workpolis says IT jobs are some of the hardest to fill in Canada. There is a link to it form the Workopolis FB page.


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## JGK (Dec 12, 2009)

As Auld Yin said, IT jobs are not considered as "In Demand" by Canada. 

It is very unlikely you would get a positive LMO for one (unless you have an extreme niche skill) which you will need for a work permit.


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## GRETZKY427 (Jan 5, 2013)

JGK said:


> As Auld Yin said, IT jobs are not considered as "In Demand" by Canada.
> 
> It is very unlikely you would get a positive LMO for one (unless you have an extreme niche skill) which you will need for a work permit.


If you spoke both French and English would this increase the changes of a LMO, obviously in Ontario and Quebec im talking about.


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## JGK (Dec 12, 2009)

GRETZKY427 said:


> If you spoke both French and English would this increase the changes of a LMO, obviously in Ontario and Quebec im talking about.


No, if the profession is not considered "in demand", it is highly likely there will be Canadian citizens or permanent residents with the skills required to fill a vacancy. this will rule out the possibility of being issued an LMO.

As a foreign worker trying for employment in Canada, it is not a level playing field. the odds are not in your favour.


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## Wexford_Ireland (Mar 6, 2012)

How experienced are you?

If you've got lots of experience its not going to be difficult to have a job spec that is not fillable by anyone else. 

If you fresh out of college then your out of look, Canada has lots of fresh faced IT people.

There is a huge real actual demand for *experienced *IT staff in Toronto.
How many of those are LMO suitable or even TWP with a view to a LMO application after your in the role for a year is debatable. And by experienced I mean have actual hands on experience of real projects and situations that are relevant to Canadian business e.g Disaster Recovery, Business continuity, business analysis, data centre migration, Project management, Senior IT management, etc etc.

_Can you do it? Have you done it? Can you show us examples?. Yes? Yes? Yes? We want you, now tell us about this visa stuff?_

Remember most companies and people you'll be dealing with have no idea of the hoops you have to jump through for an LMO or anything to do with visas

So you'll have to be able to discuss the various methods by which you can legally work in Canada with them. Larger firms are more likely to have a HR team with some experience of the visa issues so concentrate on them would be my advice.

If you go down the TWP route and work hard with a company for a year and succeed and shine they are more likely to go that little bit extra for you in obtaining an LMO.

Remember the LMO rule is that there are NO Canadians available to fill that role so if your company writes a sufficiently tight job specification, which they are entitled to, and they can show they attempted to recruit for that role but could not find anyone of sufficient skills, capabilities and *demonstrated ability* then they can apply for the LMO.

If you are looking at roles like junior systems admin, programmer with 3 years experience, web site developer then you will struggle. Maybe look at other skills you have or your partner has. I have a friend working happily in IT in Vancouver who gained entrance and work permit on the coat tails of his hairdresser wife


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## RGS (Jan 24, 2011)

squeezyb said:


> Workpolis says IT jobs are some of the hardest to fill in Canada. There is a link to it form the Workopolis FB page.


I would agree with this statement. I work in IT for years. We recently had an opening for an IT Business Analyst and after posting the job in recruitment sites and local newspapers, we couldn't find anyone qualified with experience to fill the job, and finally had to hire someone from all the way on the other side of the world (she started here a couple months ago). We are now posting for a Sr. Network Administrator who is Cisco certified and are finding the very same thing... that after posting the job, we got a bunch of applicants who are new and fresh faced to IT, but none with years of experience. So we are now once again looking to hire someone from outside of Canada.

I've found that junior IT jobs are easy to fill from within Canada and our region, but Senior IT jobs are getting very difficult to fill.


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## rroz (Aug 14, 2012)

Thanks a lot for the responces.


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## Wexford_Ireland (Mar 6, 2012)

That FaceBook page is The 5 hardest jobs to fill in Canada this year



> Mobile Developers
> We all live attached to our smartphones—that’s just a reality of today. Statistics from a mobile technology group put more than 50,000 people working in mobile technology. Sounds like a lot, but when you consider the 1.9 million people who work in retail or the 1.5 million in manufacturing, you can see how small that segment really is. So why are these jobs so hard to fill? The rapid growth of the industry just can’t keep up with the number of people with those specific skills.
> 
> Niche IT jobs
> Unsurprisingly, IT roles always fall into the hardest-to-fill category. “In terms of hard to fill roles within IT, it always comes down to how niche the technology skill-set is,” IT recruiter Carmine Pallazzo explains, “Some technologies or skill-sets literally reduce our talent pool to a handful (i.e. less than 10 across the country) of people…from here, you now have to assess whether or not they meet the other mandatory requirements: does the location and/or salary work, and of course, is this individual available. These factors can bring your talent pool down to zero.”


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