According to globalknowledge.com, While solidified tech hubs such as San Francisco’s Silicon Valley attract quite a substantial amount of talent, Toronto is stepping in with a few key advantages to pull the talent more north. One major component of success for attracting a large talent pool in Toronto and in Canada as a whole is its progressive immigration policies. Canada received more than 800,000 immigrants from over 230 nations in 2017, this is a strategic move to counteract the aging working population(globalknowledge.com). Unsurprisingly, this combined with good social security nets like free healthcare and access to quality education resulted in a huge boom for tech companies receiving a wide variety of talented job seekers( “8 Reasons Startups Choose to Start Up in Canada”, 2019).
According to F, Salmon of inc.com, another big pull factor for Toronto’s start-up sector is its corporate tax for a company’s first $500,000.00. The corporate tax rate for these situations in only 3.5%, this leaves more financial flexibility for these new or smaller companies to grow in future years (Salmon, F. 2018). Toronto as of 2018 also boasted an employment growth of around 4.5% resulting in a thriving, growing job landscape (Salmon, F. 2018).
What forces are working against the emerging tech growth?
Housing prices in Toronto have been rising to substantial levels. As of June 2018, the average one-bedroom in Toronto would cost a renter approximately $1,532.00 per month, while this is lower than in San Francisco where the same apartment would cost $3,239.00 per month, it is definitely a detractor when it comes to encouraging people to move to the city(Salmon, F. 2018).
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