The tech giant has plans to open a new office building that, they announced in a press release, will create 3,000 new jobs in areas like e-commerce technology, machine learning and cloud computing. Amazon already employs over 6,000 people in Canada.
Promising numbers
“Amazon is excited to create 3,000 more highly-skilled jobs in Vancouver,” said Alexandre Gagnon, Vice President of Amazon Canada and Mexico. “Vancouver is home to an incredibly talented and diverse workforce, and these thousands of new employees will invent on behalf of our customers worldwide.”
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The new Amazon office will be located at Vancouver’s old Canada Post sorting facility. The development is slated to finish in 2022.
Along with @CanadianPM & @MayorGregor, we're honoured to welcome our valued partner @amazon.ca to The Post, a landmark location at Vancouver’s new social & cultural nexus. The Post will be home to 7000 people who will work, create and collaborate here. pic.twitter.com/lnuKZpG8xy
— QuadReal (@QuadRealGroup) April 30, 2018
A mixed bag for Vancouver
While this move by Amazon helps to cement Canadian economic centres as technology hubs—especially when it’s paired with the announcement that Collision, one of North America’s largest tech conferences, is moving to Toronto next year—concern is definitely warranted. Amazon doesn’t exactly have the best track record for employing best practices with their workers, or their taxes.
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Vancouver was even left off of Amazon’s top 20 list of candidates for HQ2, and some are questioning why it was chosen for this major expansion.
Trudeau didn't mention that the worst paid tech hub in the US is 57% more expensive than employees in Vancouver, which is probably why Amazon chose it? Shocking.#cdnpoli #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/12O6gAiqsO
— Stephen Punwasi (@StephenPunwasi) April 30, 2018
This “investment in Canadian talent” comes at rock-bottom prices, and both Vancouver and Amazon know this. In fact, when Vancouver pitched to have HQ2 built there, one of the four selling points was about value. “Our talent competes with the best, yet we have the lowest wages of all North American tech hubs” is a line taken directly from the city’s pitch document.
Vancouver average tech salary (in USD): $58,179.34
Seattle average tech salary: $113,906May 1, 2018
Amazon’s addition of 3,000 more job openings doesn’t necessarily mean that 3,000 people in the tech sector will find work. British Columbia has the second-highest job vacancy rate in Canada, as of 2016. B.C’s Lower Mainland–Southwest region—includes Vancouver—had the highest job vacancy rate of the three economic regions with the largest populations (includes Toronto and Montreal), at 3.1 per cent.
Putting the 3000 jobs that amazon will add in Vancouver into perspective, that's just under 5% of the the jobs in the lower mainland southwest that are currently unfilled and actively looking for workers. Share of unfilled jobs has been growing for a while. pic.twitter.com/KCkmYXKrF0
— Jens von Bergmann (@vb_jens) April 30, 2018
A light at the end of the tunnel is that experts on the matter believe that, with time, the low average wages that drew Amazon to Vancouver will likely go up over time.
