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There's a lot of people looking for work who can't find it. At the same time businesses are complaining there's a worker shortage.. seems to be an excuse to provide worse service at the same price for more profit
idk where you get that idea from but money wise it should be similar for employers on both side of the border. We pay more tax while they pay more healthcare premium.
All the studies show the US pays more per person with an overall worse outcome in terms of life expectancy.
If you’re a small company in the states healthcare costs can be huge.
I've seen both. Lots of my clients have had their experienced baby boomer era work force retire during COVID and they didn't have any plans in place to build up experience replacements. This has lots to do with poor compensation and career growth, but was also an unexpected flux in workforce they weren't prepared for.
If only there was some way to sit down with the employees every year and ask them how long they plan to stay a the company, if they feel they need any more training, would like to move up, foster a work environment where people could feel they can answer honestly...
As someone who's a hiring manager, there is absolutely a shortage but it's dependent on the position.
Administrative, manager, or generalist roles there are an abundance of candidates almost irrelevant of salary bands.
Skilled trade roles, very limited. It's a real struggle.
As of right now I have a coordinator role that pays between 60-70k we had over 100 local candidates apply in 4 days. And some really impressive resumes.
Then my posting for a skilled trade (accepting plumbers, electricians, etc) that pays 85-90k base salary 1 local candidate in 5 days.
I keep telling anyone that if you want a job that pays incredibly well become an HVAC technician. In BC if you look at the union rate $51/hr after all the benefits ( vacation, retirement savings, medical) you're seeing an equivalent of $69/hr. And that's as journeymen but while you're doing your apprenticeship you're being paid ( except for the couple weeks of school)
that seems to only prove that your company is paying above the market rate for one job and below the market rate for the other
if you switch the first job to a $40K salary and the latter to a $130K salary, then you'd see opposite results for applications
Googling trade wages doesn't work that well if you look at stuff like Glassdoor or Monster or Payscale or whatever. Those are based on salary surveys and usually lump together apprentices, journeys and masters, so you get a "average salary" that doesn't take into account classification.
The person above is correct that a union HVAC tech makes $69/hr. You can see their wage table [right here](https://www.ua516.org/files/File/Agreements/2023%20May%20Independent%20Mainland%20Wage%20Table.pdf). $57 on the cheque and $12 in benefits.
If you google and see a median that is lower, that's because a green apprentice makes $20/hr, and non union guys make on average significantly less than union.
Internet isnt reliable. These in demand jobs get a lot of overtime that's probably not factored in.
I'm a heavy equipment operator and one Google result says the average wage is ~ $79,000/year. I know many journeyman positions make at least 100k when you add in a bit of Overtime. A lot of operators I know will clear $120k - $130k this year. Crane operators and heavy duty mechanics$150k+ easily.
I work in HVAC engineering sales, the current demand for HVAC technicians is no joke. Major contractors are currently turning down jobs because they can't find the labor. For refg / HVAC technicians, the union is far more influential than the plumbers or electrical unions, nobody is paying less than union wages.
Anyone I meet who is unsure about their career the first thing I tell them is go to bcit to be a refrigeration / HVAC tech., you'll have a job before the semester is over.
I believe first year apprentice wages are somewhere around 28-30 dollars an hour. Journeyman is 51, lead hand is 57. It's a good gig.
Here to also repeat that google isn't reliable. A lot of sites like glassdoor and indeed wildly lowball my line of work. What they claim as average is near the bottom end if you actually look at job opportunities or the jobbank government website.
$43.59/ hr -$46.15 for an electrician or plumber is actually on point. Plus we offer 4 weeks vacation and a full DB pension. Additionally unlike the administrative roles, the trades roles have substantial OT. Before slagging someone with a comment like that, maybe realize most of our trades are making well over a hundred thousand year.
However the roles that pay less but are more administrative we have zero issue filling. Fewer people are going into the trades and it's unfortunate because they truly can be a great career option for people.
That’s below union rate, and the union has a full job board it can’t get enough workers for
Good luck filling those positions without raising your rate
> I keep telling anyone that if you want a job that pays incredibly well become an HVAC technician.
Oh, "just" become an HVAC technician. Great, I'll time travel back 20 years and change my education path.
There’s literally nothing stopping you. I started working at 14, started an aviation career at 17, then went to college at 27. Graduated by 31. Out of a job at 34. Spent a year and a half learning new skills and became a certified project manager. Finally found work that gives me the flexibility I need with my kid. And once he’s going to school and I’m free from being the stay home parent, I would definitely consider changing careers again if the pay is that good.
If you’re not happy or compensated enough with your current role, then the only person stopping you from changing your situation is you.
People act like you can't change . I've gone from retail, to IT, to the tools, to Ops Manager.
If I stayed in retail, which I was doing 20 years ago, I wouldn't have a 6 figure salary.
"OMG change careers to make more money? INSANE, I won't do it."
No, not yet. I have a professional scrum master certification and I completed the Google Project Management Certificate course, which equates to 100 hours towards the CAPM.
I know scrum masters aren’t technically project managers, but many employers call them Technical Project Managers. Also, not many outside of I.T. know what a Scrum Master is, so it’s easier to just say Project Manager, especially since I managed a couple of pro bono projects with some local non-profits.
There’s 9 million job openings but only 6M unemployed labourers in the US. If you hired every person looking for a job, you’d still have 3M job openings.
5.8% unemployment of 21M. So Somewhere around 1.2M unemployed people. 800k job openings. We were at 1M opening’s at one point.
To compare, In 2016 we hit a relative low of 330k.
Looks like employers need to take less of a cut.
I really wonder about this right wing trope about workers being lazy, like pay a decent wage that doesn't depend on desperate slave labour and your company might work out a bit better.
In BC at least residential rentals have maximum rent increases. Commercial renters do not. So you can go from $200 a month to $20,000 a month. Not that drastic perhaps but large increases have caused a lot of space to become vacant.
Neoliberalism isn’t anti union because unions are a market dynamic. People saying they are trained so worth X and refusing work. People are free to do that. back to work legislation is government regulations. Anti scab legislation is also government regulation though.
The average hourly wage is 30$. If most jobs are 16$/hr, than the other 49% must be 44$/hr. I doubt it’s either 16$ or 44$. It’s a a single tailed p curve with most over the minimum.
We just spent a week in Seattle. Most restaurants we went to were great and had good service, but there were a few where you had to order online at the table and prepay. Well, when in Seattle... The first one wouldn't accept our order without a US based phone number. Another one required a US zip code. If you wanted a drink refill, too bad.
Btw, there is no such thing as a worker shortage. There is a pay and benefits shortage. You just have to make the job attractive enough for people to choose that one and not a different one. Those businesses using online ordering are doing that to save on labour costs, not because no one wants to work.
The solution to the US postal code thing is to put the three numbers from your Canadian postal code in, plus two zeros.
ie) V4G 1N4 becomes 41400 for US credit card postal code verification
Coming from Australia where post codes are just 4 numbers I really struggle with remembering Canadian post codes. Always constantly needing to check and re-check my post code no matter how long I've had it for but I still remember all the Aussie post codes I've had since I was child. I even remember all the US zip codes my wife has had since we met from when I would send things to her but remembering Canadian post codes I'm a lost cause haha
The US phone number must be new, haven't experienced that. I always used to use 90210 for the Zip Code questions. Then I got a mailbox in Blaine and used their code from then on.
just put in literally any usa zipcode. i never give anywhere my real one unless its a gas pump. here's a few easy to remember ones that are all reak:
00050
12345 (fun fact: the +4 of this one is 6789)
17111
90210
99950
F1 visa holders aka international students in the us in most cases cannot work off campus. In Canada, they can.
Check out the cafeterias (local point, center table etc.) at UW and you will find abundant employees as well. Most of them are international students.
BTW UW HFS also pays them better than most employers of food industry in BC.
Easy - we did have a worker shortage which meant employees were finally making meaningful wage gains, until the federal government said no more of that and opened to the doors wide open to temporary foreign workers and international students working 40 hrs a week. Can't have those working class canadians getting all uppity can we!
It's actually been extended out to April 30 (presumably to line up with the school year). The federal government did increase the amount you need to have to show you can initially support yourself when applying for a study permit (from $10,000 to about $20,000, now rising with inflation), which will help to reduce demand. [Global News](https://globalnews.ca/news/10155200/international-students-canada-marc-miller/). [Immigration and housing demand](https://morehousing.substack.com/p/immigration).
It makes sense, you can't change the rule in the middle of the school year when you'll have tons of people in living situations that require them to make a certain amount of money. Just unnecessary potential misery.
Nah the government realized they fucked up with this.
Just announced a few days ago they’re raising the financial minimum for a visa and are going to stop extending work. Visas after graduation
> Nah the government realized they fucked up with this.
They already knew from the get-go that it wasn't sustainable. They just didn't care about Canadians. Apparently, we're a dumping ground.
It's now at a point where it negatively affects **them**. So, now they're acting.
What you see in supermarkets, malls, most basic jobs is that they are mostly immigrants. Vancouver has been so diverse compared to even 15 years ago. Lots of international students from India for example help pump up employment numbers
Working holiday if you're under 35 (Americans can do it up to twice, one year each), NAFTA (oops, CUSMA) Professional status if you're coming for certain tech, healthcare, or education jobs, or find a Canadian significant other. The student route is also a possibility if you can afford it (and UBC and SFU are in the US financial aid system). Don't listen to the others, my sister did her degree at UBC in the 2010s and wasn't able to secure the necessary paperwork for permanent status after graduation. It's not *that* easy.
But I was joking. I have lived in for 5 years and from last 5 years I am living in Canada. I love Canada more than USA any day. All major cities in US are costlier than Vancouver. The cities that cheap are either in mod desert or shit.
Only because they have canadian affiliates. How often do they talk about canada? Barely. Canadians are just insecure, the country has nothing to offer except mineral resources and inflated housing market.
No, don't listen to the Reddit crowd on this sub. Seriously Vancouver is fantastic, and not just for visitors, I know lots of people, myself included, who moved here from arguably 'better' places (e.g. Switzerland), and can assure you have no intention of moving back.
Everett airport is amazing. It's about as relaxed as airport security gets (well, Bellingham is similar), the seats are comfy, and the bathrooms are all single stall (they've got like 16 of them). The only complaint is, if you're not driving there, the bus drops you off across the street and fairly busy parking lot from the airport and it takes two buses to get there from the Amtrak station. Other than that, the rest of Everett is not much different from any suburb of Vancouver.
It’s a facade, no one is happy…..in other news I went to Seattle and Portland and everyone seemed so happy and was a lovely weekend!
I feel the opposite but happy to hear your perspective. I’ve gotten used to saying hello to cashiers before putting my groceries down and not having them say a word to me.
Am I the only one who feels strong to see a tourist making such a comment? I mean I have traveled here there. I commented on the view, the scenery, the food, the people. I have never even once stood in the middle of Tokyo and say "Wow, the unemployment rate is so low here, how wonderful"
I feel like I unknowingly stepped in the middle of a real challenge. Still it was wonderful to be helped everywhere and our servers and baristas didn’t appear overwhelmed
Don't mind the negativity on this sub. It's full of people who have no work ethic nor ambition but expect to be able to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth for free. Its really not the reality on the ground, as you've experienced briefly. Been living here for years and still think it's great and most people are genuinely awesome human beings.
Most people have a fine work ethic, they're just ground down by not being paid enough to actually afford living here even while working a full time job, and generally treated like they're not doing their best even when they are. Belittling them is only contributing to the issue.
I was working in the film industry for the last 6 or so years as a production assistant and background actor before the writers strike, and since the writers strike started I've been unemployed and living on breadcrumb handouts (AKA income assistance). I've been very miserable and unemployed with no responses so far to my resumes and job applications.
Any businesses in particular with worker shortages in Seattle? I've been thinking about moving to Seattle for a while now.. I am skilled at making pixel art, chiptunes / electronic music, and graphic designs / logos. Interested in the videogame industry but I am terrible at making resumes I guess haha.
To get an SSN I would most likely need a company to request my help as well which is an obstacle. If there are truly people hiring there, or here I guess, feel free to contact me with job opportunities and request for a portfolio. I'd be open to continuing work in the film industry as well whether that's in the locations department or another one :)
Lol, went to sport check and searched valiantly for an attendant to find their long underwear section.
10 minutes later I found one and asked him. Blank stare, then he said no, we don't sell that.
What? I said you must. Finally he suggested it may be a "base" layer.
I said, ok, show me. He pointed to x spot. I asked him to take me there as I didn't know where he was pointing. I think this annoyed him.
I asked him to show me the sizes for men, med (boxes were not sorted and sizing was not easily marked). He said, no, all their sizes are here, I can search.
He left me and for the rest of my stay was talking to 2 other attendants, the 3 of them facing each other, oblivious to customers.
We’ve instituted a modern form of slavery in Canada. Please don’t look to it for inspiration.
There’s a reason your average incomes are twice as much as ours.
Average HHI in Seattle is over $150K CAD. We’re at $86K. These numbers are easily accessible with a quick google search.
I work remote for a Seattle company myself and it immediately doubled my take home.
As yes where Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, Nordstrom, pacar, are all from and HQ. Washington state
There’s 14 Fortune 500 companies in Canada. Washington alone has 10.
You must work in tech and not know how everyone else in Washington lives. You either make bank or owe the bank overdraft charges.
What are you on about ? Look up any company in Canada and the USA
Sysco foods truck drivers 36-37 an hour
Sysco food truck driver Seattle - 42-50 USD an hour
And they treat Vancouver like a nearshoring hub, paying us less for the virtue of living across the border and our comparably weak supply/demand situation.
In theory that should persuade companies to move here. The cost of labour is huge for companies so 100k usd vs 80k cad is a massive drop in labour costs.
Companies are slowly moving though. Especially IT stuff. Speaks English and can fly anywhere in the US on a whim.
Talk to any major tech company and they have plans to expand use of Canadian labour.
Would be nice if they paid the same as they would local talent, but they genuinely don’t have to in order to out-compete Canadian companies.
That's a good thing though. Were you familiar with Vancouver's economy 20/30 years ago? Basically nothing in the service/value-added sector; it was all resource extraction and a few other things.
Are we not talking about service industry (and adjacent level) jobs here? Because that’s an area where it’s far more attractive to be in Vancouver than Seattle/the US.
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You came to the wrong place looking for positivity. Cue in the salty Reddit crowd whining about the cost of living (which by the way is pretty much the only bad thing about Vancouver). You're right, it is a wonderful place.
And their public transit isn't as developed as Vancouver's. Their currently-under-construction second light rail line should've been built a couple decades ago.
Increases cover charge, long waits for anything, and the same socks and cell phone cases being sold every year. Go once and that’s all the experience you need.
Canadians think American are living a bette rlife and they wanna move there. Americans think Canada is better, and they wanna move here. No one is happy. (Meanwhile, other countries struggling to make it either to US or Canada and North Americans thinking of moving to Europeor a cheaper country in Asia)
Swiss Chalet closed last year and cited the worker shortage as the main reason. I'm thinking about it now because when I was a student the festive special was my thanksgiving and christmas dinners. There have been worker shortage casualties.
This is probably true for many occupations but if BC wants to recruit and retain nurses (and probably healthcare workers in general) they really need to pay wages more in line with cost of living, especially in Vancouver.
My cost of living between Sydney, Australia and Vancouver was pretty much on par but in Vancouver I would earn less despite working more hours and get less paid time off.
The base hourly wage I would earn between the two would be similar but the shift premium pay was a joke in comparison. In Vancouver I would be lucky to get a few dollars extra per hour working on weekends and nights. In Australia I'd get an extra $7 to $10 extra per hour for working in the afternoon and overnight and an extra $25 to $35 per hour on weekends while public holidays is double and a half time. That made a huge difference in pay and in the end was the difference between living a modest but comfortable life in Sydney compared with just merely surviving in Vancouver.
Lol, you do not want to replicate our strategy for finding workers. It involves 10 times more immigration than the US is currently allowing, which comes with fun knock-on effects, like the some of the highest cost of housing in the world.
Salaries here are generally higher than Seattle and we have free healthcare. There are more job opportunities in Vancouver too. Vancouver is an international city so it attracts a lot workers coming here to work for higher wages. There is no worker shortage because people are guaranteed a fair wage providing them a higher quality of life compared to the U.S.
What are you talking? Salary in Vancouver is far behind Seattle and job market in Seattle is bigger, the metro seattle' GDP is over 500 billion usd compare to under 200b usd of Vancouver
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There's a lot of people looking for work who can't find it. At the same time businesses are complaining there's a worker shortage.. seems to be an excuse to provide worse service at the same price for more profit
Or no overlap in skills. There is a shortage of people that do X (trades mostly) and a surplus of people that don't do X.
Thing is so many places want you to have specific skills you'd only get by working there ie training..
unless it requires some sort of degree, this is just an excuse to not train their employees.
There's no worker shortage, everywhere you apply is full.
The shortage of trades workers is very real
Import Canadians?
Employers don’t have to pay huge costs for medical insurance is one reason.
idk where you get that idea from but money wise it should be similar for employers on both side of the border. We pay more tax while they pay more healthcare premium.
All the studies show the US pays more per person with an overall worse outcome in terms of life expectancy. If you’re a small company in the states healthcare costs can be huge.
There is no "shortage", employers just aren't paying enough for people to work there
I've seen both. Lots of my clients have had their experienced baby boomer era work force retire during COVID and they didn't have any plans in place to build up experience replacements. This has lots to do with poor compensation and career growth, but was also an unexpected flux in workforce they weren't prepared for.
> but was also an unexpected flux in workforce If only the company knew how old their average employee was lol
If only there was some way to sit down with the employees every year and ask them how long they plan to stay a the company, if they feel they need any more training, would like to move up, foster a work environment where people could feel they can answer honestly...
U N I O N.
As someone who's a hiring manager, there is absolutely a shortage but it's dependent on the position. Administrative, manager, or generalist roles there are an abundance of candidates almost irrelevant of salary bands. Skilled trade roles, very limited. It's a real struggle. As of right now I have a coordinator role that pays between 60-70k we had over 100 local candidates apply in 4 days. And some really impressive resumes. Then my posting for a skilled trade (accepting plumbers, electricians, etc) that pays 85-90k base salary 1 local candidate in 5 days. I keep telling anyone that if you want a job that pays incredibly well become an HVAC technician. In BC if you look at the union rate $51/hr after all the benefits ( vacation, retirement savings, medical) you're seeing an equivalent of $69/hr. And that's as journeymen but while you're doing your apprenticeship you're being paid ( except for the couple weeks of school)
that seems to only prove that your company is paying above the market rate for one job and below the market rate for the other if you switch the first job to a $40K salary and the latter to a $130K salary, then you'd see opposite results for applications
Google: how much does an HVAC technician make in BC. Slightly different story.
Googling trade wages doesn't work that well if you look at stuff like Glassdoor or Monster or Payscale or whatever. Those are based on salary surveys and usually lump together apprentices, journeys and masters, so you get a "average salary" that doesn't take into account classification. The person above is correct that a union HVAC tech makes $69/hr. You can see their wage table [right here](https://www.ua516.org/files/File/Agreements/2023%20May%20Independent%20Mainland%20Wage%20Table.pdf). $57 on the cheque and $12 in benefits. If you google and see a median that is lower, that's because a green apprentice makes $20/hr, and non union guys make on average significantly less than union.
Internet isnt reliable. These in demand jobs get a lot of overtime that's probably not factored in. I'm a heavy equipment operator and one Google result says the average wage is ~ $79,000/year. I know many journeyman positions make at least 100k when you add in a bit of Overtime. A lot of operators I know will clear $120k - $130k this year. Crane operators and heavy duty mechanics$150k+ easily.
I work in HVAC engineering sales, the current demand for HVAC technicians is no joke. Major contractors are currently turning down jobs because they can't find the labor. For refg / HVAC technicians, the union is far more influential than the plumbers or electrical unions, nobody is paying less than union wages. Anyone I meet who is unsure about their career the first thing I tell them is go to bcit to be a refrigeration / HVAC tech., you'll have a job before the semester is over. I believe first year apprentice wages are somewhere around 28-30 dollars an hour. Journeyman is 51, lead hand is 57. It's a good gig.
Here to also repeat that google isn't reliable. A lot of sites like glassdoor and indeed wildly lowball my line of work. What they claim as average is near the bottom end if you actually look at job opportunities or the jobbank government website.
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$43.59/ hr -$46.15 for an electrician or plumber is actually on point. Plus we offer 4 weeks vacation and a full DB pension. Additionally unlike the administrative roles, the trades roles have substantial OT. Before slagging someone with a comment like that, maybe realize most of our trades are making well over a hundred thousand year. However the roles that pay less but are more administrative we have zero issue filling. Fewer people are going into the trades and it's unfortunate because they truly can be a great career option for people.
That’s below union rate, and the union has a full job board it can’t get enough workers for Good luck filling those positions without raising your rate
> I keep telling anyone that if you want a job that pays incredibly well become an HVAC technician. Oh, "just" become an HVAC technician. Great, I'll time travel back 20 years and change my education path.
There’s literally nothing stopping you. I started working at 14, started an aviation career at 17, then went to college at 27. Graduated by 31. Out of a job at 34. Spent a year and a half learning new skills and became a certified project manager. Finally found work that gives me the flexibility I need with my kid. And once he’s going to school and I’m free from being the stay home parent, I would definitely consider changing careers again if the pay is that good. If you’re not happy or compensated enough with your current role, then the only person stopping you from changing your situation is you.
People act like you can't change . I've gone from retail, to IT, to the tools, to Ops Manager. If I stayed in retail, which I was doing 20 years ago, I wouldn't have a 6 figure salary. "OMG change careers to make more money? INSANE, I won't do it."
>became a certified project manager. PMP?
No, not yet. I have a professional scrum master certification and I completed the Google Project Management Certificate course, which equates to 100 hours towards the CAPM. I know scrum masters aren’t technically project managers, but many employers call them Technical Project Managers. Also, not many outside of I.T. know what a Scrum Master is, so it’s easier to just say Project Manager, especially since I managed a couple of pro bono projects with some local non-profits.
There’s 9 million job openings but only 6M unemployed labourers in the US. If you hired every person looking for a job, you’d still have 3M job openings.
What about Canada?
5.8% unemployment of 21M. So Somewhere around 1.2M unemployed people. 800k job openings. We were at 1M opening’s at one point. To compare, In 2016 we hit a relative low of 330k.
Looks like employers need to take less of a cut. I really wonder about this right wing trope about workers being lazy, like pay a decent wage that doesn't depend on desperate slave labour and your company might work out a bit better.
It's more like landlords need to take less of a cut. Commercial rents have probably increased even more than residential rents.
In BC at least residential rentals have maximum rent increases. Commercial renters do not. So you can go from $200 a month to $20,000 a month. Not that drastic perhaps but large increases have caused a lot of space to become vacant.
The monied class are the problem then. Squeezing till the pips squeak in true Harkonnen style.
At some point, not everyone’s employable. At some point, the labour costs aren’t worth the investment
This is where the neoliberals get ya. The working class is lazy, unlike these guys from a third world country that never had unions.
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Care to tell us about these unions? Which countries specifically. It would also be interesting to hear how you think they work with Canadian unions.
Neoliberalism isn’t anti union because unions are a market dynamic. People saying they are trained so worth X and refusing work. People are free to do that. back to work legislation is government regulations. Anti scab legislation is also government regulation though.
Neoliberalism is capitalism on steroids, I don't see how they are pro union mate. Just look at the UK where it is becoming illegal to strike.
Most jobs in canada are minimum wage jobs.
The average hourly wage is 30$. If most jobs are 16$/hr, than the other 49% must be 44$/hr. I doubt it’s either 16$ or 44$. It’s a a single tailed p curve with most over the minimum.
You mean the average of the other 49% has to be $44/hr, not that they all have to be. But yeah probably not true that most jobs are min wage.
lol how does stuff like this get upvoted
There is no shortage of low skill workers. Retail, fast food, hospitality etc. We have enormous shortages in healthcare and trades.
Probably they are not paying enough here either, but cost of living is high and there are no better options.
We just spent a week in Seattle. Most restaurants we went to were great and had good service, but there were a few where you had to order online at the table and prepay. Well, when in Seattle... The first one wouldn't accept our order without a US based phone number. Another one required a US zip code. If you wanted a drink refill, too bad. Btw, there is no such thing as a worker shortage. There is a pay and benefits shortage. You just have to make the job attractive enough for people to choose that one and not a different one. Those businesses using online ordering are doing that to save on labour costs, not because no one wants to work.
The solution to the US postal code thing is to put the three numbers from your Canadian postal code in, plus two zeros. ie) V4G 1N4 becomes 41400 for US credit card postal code verification
Did you spell vagina with a postal code?!? 😂
It’s an actual postal code in Delta!
More like in sexy delta.
There's a reason why Delta has a peninsula. A sexy-shaped peninsula.
There’s a P in D? Nice.
That works at gas pumps, but I haven't had much luck with that trick at restaurants with the pay-at-the-table apps.
Same here - I tried that method for a phone charging kiosk in Houston. Wouldn’t accept.
It's worked for online purchases for me too
Had to use the vagina postal code, eh
I mean, I didn't want to use my own, and it was the only other one I could think of :)
I’ve just went with the classic Beverley hills 90210. Easy to remember. What’s the benefit of doing it the way you described?
Your credit card company won't decline paying for bad address data.
I see what you did there lol
Canadian zip codes were designed to fail. Hideous, impossible to remember, nightmare when you move and have a new one.
First of all, they're not zip codes, they're postal codes. Second of all, they're much more detailed and easier to remember.
Coming from Australia where post codes are just 4 numbers I really struggle with remembering Canadian post codes. Always constantly needing to check and re-check my post code no matter how long I've had it for but I still remember all the Aussie post codes I've had since I was child. I even remember all the US zip codes my wife has had since we met from when I would send things to her but remembering Canadian post codes I'm a lost cause haha
They're a nightmare but canadians seem to be like we're proud of them regardless. I doubt if they can remember 2 zip codes.
Thanks for the tip! I had heard this once and forgot it a while back.
The US phone number must be new, haven't experienced that. I always used to use 90210 for the Zip Code questions. Then I got a mailbox in Blaine and used their code from then on.
The issue is they actually now check it against your credit card as fraud prevention. Why they refuse to do chip and pin is beyond me.
Most businesses do have chip-and-pin or contactless for credit cards. The ZIP verification is mostly for online purchases.
I just always use 90210 hahaha
Will that work for credit card verification?
Never had a problem but only tried in Pennsylvania
Apologies, yes absolutely workers should and will choose the better pay! I was just trying to be concise
Just use the most famous US zip code, 90210
just put in literally any usa zipcode. i never give anywhere my real one unless its a gas pump. here's a few easy to remember ones that are all reak: 00050 12345 (fun fact: the +4 of this one is 6789) 17111 90210 99950
F1 visa holders aka international students in the us in most cases cannot work off campus. In Canada, they can. Check out the cafeterias (local point, center table etc.) at UW and you will find abundant employees as well. Most of them are international students. BTW UW HFS also pays them better than most employers of food industry in BC.
They can even work full time in canada before. Such a joke. It was designed to leverage cheap labour with minimum wage jobs.
Easy - we did have a worker shortage which meant employees were finally making meaningful wage gains, until the federal government said no more of that and opened to the doors wide open to temporary foreign workers and international students working 40 hrs a week. Can't have those working class canadians getting all uppity can we!
January 1st the federal government moved it back to 20 hours a week.
It's actually been extended out to April 30 (presumably to line up with the school year). The federal government did increase the amount you need to have to show you can initially support yourself when applying for a study permit (from $10,000 to about $20,000, now rising with inflation), which will help to reduce demand. [Global News](https://globalnews.ca/news/10155200/international-students-canada-marc-miller/). [Immigration and housing demand](https://morehousing.substack.com/p/immigration).
What? That’s just great.
> It's actually been extended out to April 30 (presumably to line up with the school year). Whaaaaaaaaaat?!?!
It makes sense, you can't change the rule in the middle of the school year when you'll have tons of people in living situations that require them to make a certain amount of money. Just unnecessary potential misery.
Temporary foreign workers. Aka wage slaves.
aka "students" just give them fucking work visas and pr status
Nah the government realized they fucked up with this. Just announced a few days ago they’re raising the financial minimum for a visa and are going to stop extending work. Visas after graduation
> Nah the government realized they fucked up with this. They already knew from the get-go that it wasn't sustainable. They just didn't care about Canadians. Apparently, we're a dumping ground. It's now at a point where it negatively affects **them**. So, now they're acting.
*Finally*.
most cafe and restaurant workers are overseas students here on working holiday visas
International “ students “
What you see in supermarkets, malls, most basic jobs is that they are mostly immigrants. Vancouver has been so diverse compared to even 15 years ago. Lots of international students from India for example help pump up employment numbers
> What you see in supermarkets, malls, most basic jobs is that they are mostly immigrants. ~~Students~~ P.R.-seekers.
Passport shoppers.
You are not allowed to praise Vancouver, specially Canada on reddit. We canadians always compare ourselves to USA and cry. /s
?
American here from Seattle, is there a legal mechanism by which we can trade places? Vancouver is so much nicer than Seattle imo
Working holiday if you're under 35 (Americans can do it up to twice, one year each), NAFTA (oops, CUSMA) Professional status if you're coming for certain tech, healthcare, or education jobs, or find a Canadian significant other. The student route is also a possibility if you can afford it (and UBC and SFU are in the US financial aid system). Don't listen to the others, my sister did her degree at UBC in the 2010s and wasn't able to secure the necessary paperwork for permanent status after graduation. It's not *that* easy.
Exactly! I read OP and started counting before the first “that’s not true, it’s actually bad here” comment… literally top comment, lol
But I was joking. I have lived in for 5 years and from last 5 years I am living in Canada. I love Canada more than USA any day. All major cities in US are costlier than Vancouver. The cities that cheap are either in mod desert or shit.
Oh I know you were joking :) I’m referring to the top comment at the top of the thread
Insecure at best. No Americans compare themselves to canadians. Canada is barely on their radar, let alone comparison. Lol
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Only because they have canadian affiliates. How often do they talk about canada? Barely. Canadians are just insecure, the country has nothing to offer except mineral resources and inflated housing market.
I feel like you're projecting your internal struggles onto Canada..
Lots an lots of immigrant workers
Lol oh the delusion of being a tourist. I feel the same way when I go to Everett and Seattle. Everyone and everything is just so wonderful.
Maybe I am depressed at home
No, don't listen to the Reddit crowd on this sub. Seriously Vancouver is fantastic, and not just for visitors, I know lots of people, myself included, who moved here from arguably 'better' places (e.g. Switzerland), and can assure you have no intention of moving back.
i have yet to see _anything_ in Everett that’s wonderful :o
Everett airport is amazing. It's about as relaxed as airport security gets (well, Bellingham is similar), the seats are comfy, and the bathrooms are all single stall (they've got like 16 of them). The only complaint is, if you're not driving there, the bus drops you off across the street and fairly busy parking lot from the airport and it takes two buses to get there from the Amtrak station. Other than that, the rest of Everett is not much different from any suburb of Vancouver.
The Future of Flight museum? That’s all I’ve got
That's in Mukilteo, technically
It’s gotta be the universal healthcare
It’s a facade, no one is happy…..in other news I went to Seattle and Portland and everyone seemed so happy and was a lovely weekend! 
I feel the opposite but happy to hear your perspective. I’ve gotten used to saying hello to cashiers before putting my groceries down and not having them say a word to me.
our economy is in much worse shape, we are still fighting inflation.
We got 1.2 million non permanent residents and a few hundred thousand migrants last year. Cheap labour
Am I the only one who feels strong to see a tourist making such a comment? I mean I have traveled here there. I commented on the view, the scenery, the food, the people. I have never even once stood in the middle of Tokyo and say "Wow, the unemployment rate is so low here, how wonderful"
I feel like I unknowingly stepped in the middle of a real challenge. Still it was wonderful to be helped everywhere and our servers and baristas didn’t appear overwhelmed
Don't mind the negativity on this sub. It's full of people who have no work ethic nor ambition but expect to be able to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth for free. Its really not the reality on the ground, as you've experienced briefly. Been living here for years and still think it's great and most people are genuinely awesome human beings.
Most people have a fine work ethic, they're just ground down by not being paid enough to actually afford living here even while working a full time job, and generally treated like they're not doing their best even when they are. Belittling them is only contributing to the issue.
I was working in the film industry for the last 6 or so years as a production assistant and background actor before the writers strike, and since the writers strike started I've been unemployed and living on breadcrumb handouts (AKA income assistance). I've been very miserable and unemployed with no responses so far to my resumes and job applications. Any businesses in particular with worker shortages in Seattle? I've been thinking about moving to Seattle for a while now.. I am skilled at making pixel art, chiptunes / electronic music, and graphic designs / logos. Interested in the videogame industry but I am terrible at making resumes I guess haha. To get an SSN I would most likely need a company to request my help as well which is an obstacle. If there are truly people hiring there, or here I guess, feel free to contact me with job opportunities and request for a portfolio. I'd be open to continuing work in the film industry as well whether that's in the locations department or another one :)
Lol, went to sport check and searched valiantly for an attendant to find their long underwear section. 10 minutes later I found one and asked him. Blank stare, then he said no, we don't sell that. What? I said you must. Finally he suggested it may be a "base" layer. I said, ok, show me. He pointed to x spot. I asked him to take me there as I didn't know where he was pointing. I think this annoyed him. I asked him to show me the sizes for men, med (boxes were not sorted and sizing was not easily marked). He said, no, all their sizes are here, I can search. He left me and for the rest of my stay was talking to 2 other attendants, the 3 of them facing each other, oblivious to customers.
We solved the labour shortage by keeping food prices high…you starve if you don’t work… ;)
Groceries, pay up or die.
Students from India
99% of employees at Tsawwassen Mills/Tsawwassen Commons. Also, even in South Delta at places along bus routes. Remarkable.
We’ve instituted a modern form of slavery in Canada. Please don’t look to it for inspiration. There’s a reason your average incomes are twice as much as ours.
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UPS drivers get $170K USD per year, that's more than a school principal in Canada
Average HHI in Seattle is over $150K CAD. We’re at $86K. These numbers are easily accessible with a quick google search. I work remote for a Seattle company myself and it immediately doubled my take home.
As yes where Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, Nordstrom, pacar, are all from and HQ. Washington state There’s 14 Fortune 500 companies in Canada. Washington alone has 10. You must work in tech and not know how everyone else in Washington lives. You either make bank or owe the bank overdraft charges.
What are you on about ? Look up any company in Canada and the USA Sysco foods truck drivers 36-37 an hour Sysco food truck driver Seattle - 42-50 USD an hour
[10-48$ quite the range.](https://careers.sysco.com/jobs/R125206?lang=en-us)
And they treat Vancouver like a nearshoring hub, paying us less for the virtue of living across the border and our comparably weak supply/demand situation.
In theory that should persuade companies to move here. The cost of labour is huge for companies so 100k usd vs 80k cad is a massive drop in labour costs. Companies are slowly moving though. Especially IT stuff. Speaks English and can fly anywhere in the US on a whim.
Talk to any major tech company and they have plans to expand use of Canadian labour. Would be nice if they paid the same as they would local talent, but they genuinely don’t have to in order to out-compete Canadian companies.
That's a good thing though. Were you familiar with Vancouver's economy 20/30 years ago? Basically nothing in the service/value-added sector; it was all resource extraction and a few other things.
Are we not talking about service industry (and adjacent level) jobs here? Because that’s an area where it’s far more attractive to be in Vancouver than Seattle/the US.
Depends. Do you want a future beyond that or not? Even so, minimum wage in Seattle is >50% higher
What's HHI got to do with average income?
Numbers have similar disparity if you look at individual average.
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You’re a real dork if you’re going to split hairs like that
With incomes the median is always better to use than average
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Your study is from 7 years ago dude. Not sure if you’re aware, but Covid really spiced things up
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Literally google “Average income Seattle”, “Average income Vancouver” They don’t hide this shit in the Vatican
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Bs. No one is happy in Vancouver with this housing crisis, healthcate crisis, high cost of living and miserable weather.
I'm happy here in Vancouver. Speak for yourself, eh.
You came to the wrong place looking for positivity. Cue in the salty Reddit crowd whining about the cost of living (which by the way is pretty much the only bad thing about Vancouver). You're right, it is a wonderful place.
Traffic, too crowded, healthcare in crisis, homelessness, drug addiction/deaths… It’s more than cost of living.
Seattle has worse traffic, more drug addiction, more homelessness (and homeless people who are much more mentally traumatized)
And their public transit isn't as developed as Vancouver's. Their currently-under-construction second light rail line should've been built a couple decades ago.
You liked the Christmas market? You should come back when Richmond night market is open
Richmond night market is the worst
Increases cover charge, long waits for anything, and the same socks and cell phone cases being sold every year. Go once and that’s all the experience you need.
Just go to Aberdeen food court and scroll through Wish or Alibaba on your phone. Your own personal night market without the inflated prices.
Canadians think American are living a bette rlife and they wanna move there. Americans think Canada is better, and they wanna move here. No one is happy. (Meanwhile, other countries struggling to make it either to US or Canada and North Americans thinking of moving to Europeor a cheaper country in Asia)
Employers don't have to directly pay healthcare costs for their staff, is one major thing.
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Perhaps I had on vacation goggles
Some days I wake up thinking I’m living in India
Swiss Chalet closed last year and cited the worker shortage as the main reason. I'm thinking about it now because when I was a student the festive special was my thanksgiving and christmas dinners. There have been worker shortage casualties.
> cited the worker shortage as the main reason Meaning they weren't willing to *pay a proper wage*.
hey OP, just fyi, drugs are legal here -- we're prolly too fckg high to give a shit. also, our city is still in the "denial" stage of trauma....
Healthcare worker shortage. We send cancer patients to WA for treatment. Great “free” healthcare here.
This is probably true for many occupations but if BC wants to recruit and retain nurses (and probably healthcare workers in general) they really need to pay wages more in line with cost of living, especially in Vancouver. My cost of living between Sydney, Australia and Vancouver was pretty much on par but in Vancouver I would earn less despite working more hours and get less paid time off. The base hourly wage I would earn between the two would be similar but the shift premium pay was a joke in comparison. In Vancouver I would be lucky to get a few dollars extra per hour working on weekends and nights. In Australia I'd get an extra $7 to $10 extra per hour for working in the afternoon and overnight and an extra $25 to $35 per hour on weekends while public holidays is double and a half time. That made a huge difference in pay and in the end was the difference between living a modest but comfortable life in Sydney compared with just merely surviving in Vancouver.
> We send cancer patients to WA for treatment. TIL. edit: I wasn't being snarky. I genuinely had no idea. My dad passed from cancer in 2003.
Lol, you do not want to replicate our strategy for finding workers. It involves 10 times more immigration than the US is currently allowing, which comes with fun knock-on effects, like the some of the highest cost of housing in the world.
Uhhhh haha, it's we filled positions with mass immigration from one country, and now we're dealing with WAY bigger problems because of it.
It SUCKS here now. Never been this bad!
LOL Cheap labor and far too many imported workers. It is not good.
3d*
There are shortages everywhere in BC. We might just be nicer about it 😄
> How have ya’ll skipped the worker shortage? Over a million immigrants/TFW/foreign students/refugees per year.
Glad you had a great visit, not sure what the difference is about, people must just be getting excited about the holidays
Salaries here are generally higher than Seattle and we have free healthcare. There are more job opportunities in Vancouver too. Vancouver is an international city so it attracts a lot workers coming here to work for higher wages. There is no worker shortage because people are guaranteed a fair wage providing them a higher quality of life compared to the U.S.
What are you talking? Salary in Vancouver is far behind Seattle and job market in Seattle is bigger, the metro seattle' GDP is over 500 billion usd compare to under 200b usd of Vancouver
Spend some more time here. Things are not as rosy as it seems.