U.S. expat professionals attracted to Toronto

“For a lot of people, Toronto is not the first city they move to after business school or after their undergrad, but [they reconsider] after a few years when they are getting ready to both live and work in their city and really optimize both sides of the equation. I think Toronto is the best city for that,” said Greve.

Greve Young was born in Washington, received her university education in Boston, and had lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York and London. But she chose Toronto, “It had all of my favourite ingredients of Boston, San Francisco, New York, London and D.C. – all the great cities I’ve lived in – in a bizarrely accessible way for a city of its size,” she said.

Greve Young was one among many Americans looking for international experience in Canada, and specifically Toronto.

Sources revealed that when Greve Young had left the United States for London in 2001, Americans did not consider Canada for career opportunities abroad, but Greve soon realized that Toronto was full of opportunities in the technology, finance, business

A recent LinkedIn analysis of 25,000 of its American members revealed that since Jan. 2010, more of the American LinkedIn members chose Toronto as the third-most popular destination, behind only London and Sydney.

These American LinkedIn members have chosen to live and work in Toronto rather than Paris, Shanghai, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing, Melbourne and Amsterdam, which round out the top 10 cities in the world, respectively.

Some recent publications have highlighted the appeal to live in Toronto. A 2015 study by The Economist named Toronto as the world’s best city to live in, and 2016’s rankings put Vancouver in third spot, followed directly by Toronto and Calgary. 

“This is a very livable city, and I think that is a factor when we look at where people want to work.” said Julie Dossett, the communications lead for LinkedIn Canada.

Many Americans were picking Canada for their next career opportunity. But according to LinkedIn the trend of Canadian expats was to go to cities like New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area as their top two destinations. LinkedIn said that six of the top 10 destinations for Canadian job seekers were in the United States, including Los Angeles in sixth place, followed by Boston and Seattle in seventh and eighth and Washington in 10th.

According to sources Jasmeet Sidhu grew up in the Greater Toronto Area, attended the University of Toronto and was honoured as one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network before she accepted a scholarship to the Columbia School of Journalism in New York in 2011.

Over the past five years, Sidhu had lived and worked in Los Angeles, New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, first in video production and then for Facebook before accepting her current position at a Silicon Valley startup called MasterClass. Sidhu said that she ultimately intended to bring back home to Toronto what she learnt at L.A., San Francisco and New York.

The political climate in the United States was yet another factor that made many Canadians and even some Americans to prefer Toronto as their next move, sources said. Google searches relating to move in Canada also increased beyond expectations from foreigners interested in Canadian residency.

Gregory Levey – the chief executive officer of Figure 1  a Toronto-based social networking company for medical professionals – employs 36 people, including four in New York. “Literally all four of our New York employees have at least made offhand remarks about wanting to live in Canada,” he said.

“I had an interview this morning with a senior person at a super-famous tech company in Silicon Valley – like a top-three company, you use their products every day – and he wants to move here,”  Levey added. “We could have got that guy, and a big reason was the political environment. That was pretty eye-opening. It’s not necessarily Trump winning, but it’s the general political environment. I’ve heard that a lot.”

Although international experience was considered a valuable asset for job seekers on in Canada and the U.S., “People know Toronto and Canada more broadly as a safe place, a welcoming place and a tolerant place, and all of those work in our favour," said Courtney Villeneuve, the U.S. recruitment officer for the University of Toronto.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)