“A software developer that worked on one of my projects has moved to Ontario. Another one announced that his wife is pregnant and once the baby arrives, they are moving back to Europe.
In the past few years, I have been looking for several software developers for my business. The positions were mostly for senior or at least intermediate developers and were advertised on craigslist, BCTechnology and Monster. The funny thing was that for every single position from all sources, the pool of applicants was virtually the same – same people and most of them were not very skilled. Out of those few that were skilled, some left or are leaving soon.
Recently, I talked to an IT recruiter. He told me basically the same thing – there are almost no quality people and he sees the same applicants again and again. He said that he has never seen such a shortage.
So there is the silver lining – if you are a quality software developer, it should be easy for you to find a job, because many quality people have left.
However, salaries for these positions are still lower than in Toronto or Montreal. That may eventually change in bigger companies. I doubt that small companies can afford to pay more, because the owners need to make money too.”
– bubbly, at VREAA 12 Oct 2011 5:47pm