Ontario’s Immigrant Nominee Program will be introducing a new stream to attract skilled immigrants to the tech sector, according to the 2019 federal budget.
The program is expected to help with the current shortage of workers in Ontario’s tech industry. The Information and Communications Technology council predicts a shortage of approximately 220,000 tech workers across Canada by 2021.
Speaking to CBC News, Mikal Skuterud, professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, expressed concern that job shortages haven’t led to higher wages; combined with the historical precedent of the dot com crash in the early 2000s, he provided reasons to proceed with caution when scaling the program. He also mentioned the potential difficulty that spouses of newcomers accepted into the program might have in finding work.
Still, employers in the tech sector are competing in a global economy, and an international mindset may be a key factor in their success.