• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

Toronto's tech sector

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I saw another gushing article today about "Toronto's booming tech sector" and how its job growth is now greater than that of Silicon Valley. I've been reading this for years and simply can't connect any of it with the realities.

I've worked in Toronto's "tech sector" off and on since '95. The other times were all when working abroad or in other Canadian cities, but always in tech. What's happening in Toronto is not "becoming a tech hub". It's now cemented as a source of inexpensive near-shore good-enough labor.

It happens because there are still people willing to learn at '90s salaries. It happens because Canadian tech workers expect to pay for their own training. It happens because they expect to work with zero operating budget. And they think it's normal to work for companies that have either had flat profits year after year or record profits that aren't invested in the company. Canadian tech workers think it's normal to be shown the door every now and then, and for their career to end at 43. And all of this is possible because they've got nowhere to go; the economy is so hollow at this point it's that or the services industry.

And the employers know it.