26 BCBusiness OCtOBER 2014
W
Y
B . C .' S N E W S A N D V I E W S
F R O M I N D U S T R Y S E C T O R S
10/14
3 1 E N E R G Y
Jessica McDonald, a
new CEO for BC Hydro's
"new era."
front
lınes
T E C H N O L O G Y
I
n the spring of 2013, Facebook announced that it had
leased a 20,000-square-foot offi ce in Coal Harbour,
which would become a "pop-up" boot camp for recent
engineering graduates. One year on, Facebook is still
in Vancouver, just one of a dozen or so international
companies with engineering labs in the city, drawn here
because of easy-to-obtain, two-year work visas. But with the
federal government tightening up the loopholes in Canada's
temporary foreign worker program, and with changes to
U.S. immigration rules looming, Vancouver's competitive
advantage in the global scramble for high-technology talent
may not last.
Facebook is one of several tech companies currently
using the city as a way to get around the U.S. government's
annual cap on H1-B skilled worker visas. Amazon, which set
up shop at the end of 2011, currently has job postings up for
130 technical positions in town and has all but confi rmed
that it's moving into a 90,000-square-foot space in the
The Global
Temp
With lax immigration laws, lower
salaries and a common time zone with
California, Vancouver has emerged as
an outsourcing hub, albeit a small one,
for global tech giants searching for
software developers
by Jacob Parry
PAUL JOSEPH
Y
10/14
3 1 E N E R G Y
Jessica McDonald, a
new CEO for BC Hydro's
"new era."
front
lınes
front
lınes
front
