It's because the jobs are concentrated in those areas. Yes, other provinces have some work but relative to Toronto and Vancouver it's pretty light. I got lucky and moved to Kitchener last year, but what i really wanna do is live on Vancouver Island. Some day!
To add to that, most immigrants coming through the skilled worker's programs work in specialized professions that are heavily concentrated around major urban centers.
If you look at the cut-off points for the last two years, the trend has been really high, mostly focusing on people under 30, with high level of English/French, and master's or PhDs.
Most immigrants coming into the country won't be able to secure a fully remote job right off the bat. Most need Canadian work experience first before getting anything but an entry level customer service job
Many companies are walking back their permissive remote work policies which adds a layer of uncertainty for immigrants when considering living outside of an urban centre.
Many companies are walking back their permissive remote work policies
I interviewed today. I told the guy that the Commute policy WILL drive the costs up, as I'll want that separate add-on to cover the policy, like a CoLA clause. The math is simple, and will work out to a bit of a bump per day if that day is mandated onsite.
But they're competing against a job I have that is paying X and the "100% remote" is in the contract in plain language, among other factors. I feel for them, as it'll be harder to get actual talent like the astounding people I work with, when all they can offer is some cruel dotcom wage-slave term set. (according to my spreadsheet, it's gonna be double just to make par).
Yeah, I wish companies would get their heads out of their butts and realize that people were just as productive working remotely as they were in the office for most jobs. We live in a world of distributed teams! Even at my company, my team is in Seattle, Mountainview, Sydney, and Boston! It logically makes no sense anymore to mandate in-office work, yet they're doing it because they always have
it means that companies can start looking to expand into cheaper
Yeah, everyone gets that it's a benefit to the employer to run with WFH staff, but it's often a struggle for old-school manager who validate their existence through home-room attendance. My current employer had to re-up a contract during CoViD, and the only change was a pay bump to handle inflation and "100% WFH" (in legalese).
And the employer sold the desks - sometimes to staff - and released the space it was renting. So easy. One guy is onsite to receive Fedex, and there's a few 'hotel' desks that see regular use.
That's a very good point. For the footprint you must have, it lets a company choose to relo to a place that can use the tax revenue and looks far better on paper.
... but then the '100% remote' clause needs to be etched into stone, lest the management decide to "just" pull everyone back in to an office far away from their current home or abandon their jobs!
But yeah, the cost of office space in the flat land is potentially so much lower, that I'm surprised smarter people than me at business - and there's a lot - haven't jumped on the opportunity to improve shareholder value or something by a relo to some place better.
Oh you moved to the boonies boonies haha. Love that the Wikipedia page for Ocean Falls has a photo captioned "An uncharacteristically sunny day in ocean falls"
Noo, Ocean Falls was a ghost town once the sole employer moved out with the pound-foolish reduction of manufacturing in this region. I only learned of it from my wife's dad's stories of growing up in this remote community; and then learned it's a unicorn town with a surprisingly advanced infrastructure and travel potential that gives it massive potential for restoration as a quiet, remote community for select workers and some eco-tourism operations.
So it's a common schtick to champion it as a prime candidate for reopening and investment, since it has the infrastructure to support a small but dense population with modern mixed-use buildings and ship-based trade, even though the population has been essentially 3 people for decades and there's no road in.
I stopped in Ocean Falls around 10 years ago. Walked through the condemned Hotel there. Felt like walking through a building straight out of Fallout with the collapsed ceiling and old newspapers/flyers and other stuff everywhere. But aside from that Hotel was a nice place.