Here Are the Biggest Sources of Tech Talent in North America

The tech industry has been exploding these past few decades thanks to the wider adoption of various devices as well as a diversification of what this industry can provide with all things having been considered and taken into account. North America has been a hub for technological advancement during this period of growth, but where are the biggest pools of talent located in this continent? There are about 5.5 million tech workers in the US and another million in Canada, and a report from Visual Capitalist highlights where the majority of these workers originate from.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the biggest tech talent market in North America happens to be San Francisco, more specifically the Bay Area of this city. There are over 378,000 tech workers in this area, and there has been a 13% growth in talent between 2016 and 2021.

New York comes in second with a total talent pool of around 344,520, but its growth rate stands at a meager 3% in the same period. The third place on this list belongs to Toronto, which has about 289,700 workers in this field right now. Interestingly, Toronto has a stunning growth rate of about 44%, which indicates that it might quickly surpass New York in the coming years and potentially even San Francisco in due course.

The US definitely has more tech workers than major Canadian cities, but in spite of the fact that this is the case the growth rate for tech talent in Canada is far higher than that of its southern counterpart. Vancouver is seeing the highest rate of growth in all of North America with a staggering 63% increase in the number of workers between 2016 and 2021.

Other Canadian cities like Montreal and Ottawa are also seeing healthy rates of growth with 27% and 22% respectively. The only US city that surpasses these Canadian cities in terms of growth rate is Seattle with a 32% growth in the same period. Denver comes close with 23%, but most other American cities are seeing single digit growth rates in the tech talent pool save for Los Angeles that barely manages to break the 10% mark.

Vancouver is an especially interesting case, since its dramatic growth in the number of tech jobs is thanks to so many major tech companies investing in the city. Microsoft and Amazon established offices in this city, and Google is also planning to open up a fiber optic cable that will originate in Vancouver and extend all the way to Asia, and it will be exciting to see how much this would impact the growth of tech talent in Vancouver in the coming years.

The rise of the pandemic has shifted the landscape of the tech industry considerably because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up forcing companies to reprioritize what matters to them. Remote work became much more commonplace, and this gave tech workers more freedom about where they can live than might have been the case otherwise.

They no longer have to stick to coastal cities. Indeed, many tech workers are flocking to interior cities that are a lot smaller due to their lower cost of living. This will disperse the number of tech workers across the continent instead of concentrating them in various hubs. Canada is a rising star here, and if it manages to surpass the US that will be a huge upset for the industry as a whole since it goes against the trend that has been seen for quite a long time. If this trend persists, anywhere from Charlotte to Calgary could be the next big tech hub.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World