| Foreign High-Tech Workers
Find Home in British Columbia |
 By Geoffrey S. Belsher, Partner; Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
Last September, Microsoft opened an office in Richmond, B.C., where it hopes to eventually place more than 700 technology workers, many of whom were foreign students who had finished studying in the United States but were unable to obtain visas to work there. The jobs are in computer software development, requiring the specialized skills of designers and programmers that are in high demand around the globe. Importantly, Canada does not put limits on visas for skilled workers.
Microsoft’s Richmond site is located just 130 miles north of — or a 2.5 hour-drive away from — the company’s Redmond, Washington, U.S. headquarters, where 85 percent of its core software development is done. Placing workers in the same time zone helps them collaborate. While it’s too soon to tell how well this cross-border collaboration will work, the Richmond facility is intended to tap local talent as well. Vancouver has an abundant supply of tech workers, and the University of British Columbia awards many engineering degrees. Nonetheless, the 125 engineers currently employed at the Richmond facility hail from 26 countries, ranging from England and China to Trinidad and Tobago. Parminder Singh, managing director of the new facility, calls it “the U.N. of tech.”
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