IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Hello
I am planning to move to Ontario ASAP when I secure job, I am interested in finding contracts in SQL development/vb/SQL DBA. Currently I am in Dublin and sick and tired of it. How is the IT job market there? daily rates?
Thanks in advance

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

www.workopolis.com is a good place to start.

Good luck!

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Thanks for a hint, I thought that there are some IT guys who just found job in IT in Canada and can share more about daily contract rates and job market

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

My hubby is in the IT industry, there are jobs out there right now. But it is a harder market to crack sometimes in Toronto area because of an initiative that was launched here about 10 years ago. The gov't had a "retraining" program in place for people on job seekers allowance and social. It paid people to retrain in hopes less people will be on gov't assistance. So everyone and his brother was paid to do their MCSE or their CCNA and just climbed from there. Not everyone made it but it flooded the industry for a while.

Good Luck tho. :-)

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

There are jobs but there are also a lot of IT pro's fighting for those jobs.

As far as big banks and insurance companies - the outsourced to the likes of IBM (so jobs were lost there), who then outsourced to their Indian branches (even more lost there)

I know an Oracle DBA's on contract for around $55 an hour and several mainframe/midrange techies who are on $40 an hour...not quite your skill set but gives you an idea...

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Thanks for all the info, it does not sound very positive. Looks like situation and rates in London are far more better than in Canada. I am not sure what I am going to do in such case, maybe will come to toronto in june and see for myself and if it does not work start looking south of the border, US was always very good in rates and amount of IT jobs

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

I know nothing of the IT world directly but poster dbd33 is an IT pimp and IIRC from several threads on the subject, would tell you that rates and opportunities are less than those to be found in the UK. Hopefully he'll drop into this thread in due course.

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Lots of good contracting jobs where I am (Woking/Guildford area), plenty of work out there for £300-400 a day.

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

RubberDuckofdeath
looks like regardless of plenty of jobs in UK you still moving to Canada, I lived in Canada and US ,moved to Europe for a while but I know it is not for me, little scared about job prospects in Canada, I know in UK there is a lot of IT jobs and well paid, just do not see myself living on tiny overcrowded island with high living expenses and miserable weather,but I am not english, dont get me wrong I still think UK is great place with great people just not my taste for longer run

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

:lol: the irony of an immigrant complaining about the UK / Ireland being overcrowded :lol:

I like you don't want to be here long term, it doesn't suit me either.

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Well yes, generally rates in Toronto are, in dollars, a bit less than they are in pounds in London. Two years ago 38 bucks an hour looked a lot less than 40 pounds. The gap doesn't seem so large just now. What's gone away in Toronto is the contracts for nothing jobs, say PL/SQL programming, the sorts of things that can be done by a body shop, er, overseas development associate. There are still contracts for niche expertise but you've either got to have something few people have (fluent English and Informatica would be a combination this week) or very good contacts, good enough that you'll get the contract regardless of expertise.

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

RubberDuckofDeath :rofl:
I was never immigrant in Ireland just a guest worker taking opportunity to earn decent salary and see europe, I never lived and wanted to live in UK and never lived there, I am not dumb or desperate to trade opportunity live in countries like US or Canada for old Europe and being classified as a second category citizen :),never fell for EU brain wash

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Don't worry, I didn't mean it badly. I believe that people should be free to live and work where they like (I know other economic factors like job shortages etc play a part here), so long as they pay taxes, integrate with the local society, learn the local language etc. We're all people, after all. As long as we're being fair and playing by the rules, that's all that should really matter.

Good luck to you wherever you end up.

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

@polishvisitor:
what visa do you have? having a visa or not is pretty much determing whether you'll get into CA at all. in other words - you won't get a job without a valid visa prior job hunting. The chances to find an employer who will sponsor your visa are very slim. Even if you have a visa, you'll find a hard time to get a job from applying from abroad.

The job market is quite competitive especially taking under consideration that there're loads of umemployed IT people in GTA. in addition, technical stuff such as coding is more and more being shifted offshore to asian countries or sometimes nearshore to low cost areas within CA. as long as your position does not require being client facing, you will have a hard time to get a decent hourly rate. Compared to rates in london or western continental europe, the rates are already very low and cost of living is high - in toronto very high. cost of living is much cheaper than in london but the salary is also much lower. CA is not the US and by far not a place to make big bucks. more and more canadian professionals are leaving CA due to the lack of well paid jobs.

Just as a hint: dont expect canadians welcoming immigrants. In fact many don't. Especially these days you hear more and more canadians complaining about the high number of immigrants coming to CA every year when the unemployment rate is so high at the same time. You will face quite a lot discrimination e.g. you get dinged due to lack of (canadian) references or because of lack of 'canadian experience'.

Good luck!
Andy

Re: IT contracts in Toronto area
 

Andy
Thanks for your info, I received canadian citizenship 20 years ago,also i was educated in canada,and worked before in IT in canada as well. What you just said about condition in canada vs usa do not suprise me, I myself went to the states years ago ,and looks like I will do it again, thanks anyway