TechImpact and Two Atlantic Canadian tech employers share their insights
In Part 1 of TechImpact’s two-part series on the Atlantic Canadian tech jobs market, we share our industry perspective and hear from two New Brunswick companies about what’s happening in the market and their organizations. In Part 2, we invite these firms to share insights and advice about how to stand out in a tight market.
Layoffs are headline news in the tech sector globally, but they don’t tell the whole story.
As a recent article in Business Insider entitled 6 charts show that tech giants like Meta and Google have still grown like crazy even after layoffs notes, even accounting for layoffs, jobs are up.
“Even though they've endured big cuts recently, big tech firms still have headcounts that are well above their pre-pandemic levels, reflecting a trend that started well before the pandemic turbocharged their hiring,” it states.
Not all roles are equally impacted. Who is getting laid off in Canada’s tech industry?, a Feb. 20 article in the Globe and Mail cites Roger Lee, the founder of Layoffs.FYI, an online database tracking job cuts globally, who says tech sector layoffs in this country are concentrated mainly in sales, marketing and other customer-facing roles, which account for 20% of all cuts.
“HR and recruiting are the most disproportionately affected departments,” the story notes. “On the other end of the spectrum, engineering and IT departments are the least likely to experience downsizing.”
In Atlantic Canada, while we can’t ignore the stress of job losses and the challenges of other economic pressures like inflation and supply chain crunches, overall indications point to a robust local market. Here at TechImpact, every week we are approached by local companies looking for support to hire tech talent. There is a lot of opportunity at tech firms and companies with large IT departments. The demand for talent is strong here.
“The layoffs are not significant enough to swing the pendulum the other way from having a really tight market,” says Jean Keith, Director of People and Culture at Mariner, which has its headquarters in Saint John. Across the company’s four lines of innovation business, including IT and strategic advisory services and commercializing technology, the rate of hiring has been at a pace unseen since the company’s founding in 2003.
At any given time, Mariner typically has between 20 and 30 openings for various roles, including project managers, business analysts, developers, QA specialists, data engineers, cloud engineers, and more.
The growth in positions is accompanied by an increased pressure to hire fast as well as hire right, says David Baxter, Mariner’s Vice President of Marketing, reflecting the urgency for digital transformation support in all organizations.
Along with pandemic-driven shifts such as the rise of remote work and more e-commerce and online services, organizations are driven to be ever more agile in adopting new technology to remain competitive.
“Our clients are engaging in digital transformation initiatives in a very different way than they used to,” he says. In the past, there would have been much more planning for these kinds of projects. “Now, it’s at the speed of the market, the speed of their competition, the speed of their customer.”
Traditional Industries Transforming
Mariner and other regional IT firms aren't the only ones on the tech talent hunt. All industries, including healthcare, insurance, retail, tourism, finance, transportation, logistics and more, are likewise growing their digital workforces in response to the widespread digital transformation that the pandemic accelerated.
Traditional industries that have long formed the basis of the Atlantic economy are no exception.
At McCain Foods, technology is transforming all aspects of the business, from field to factory to customer.
“We want to be one digitally-enabled organization because technology touches all areas of our business,” says Kim McCauley Thomas, Human Resources Director and Business Partner for Global Technology.
That includes digital agriculture to help its growers make better decisions, digital growth in its sales and commercial department, which uses more tools like Salesforce, and digital manufacturing in its plants. Even installing a new vending machine needs networking and IT support, and non-tech employees need a certain level of tech-savviness to use the digital tools in their roles.
While the start of McCain’s digital transformation journey predates the pandemic, Kim says the demands on its global IT workforce, which currently numbers more than 330, have grown.
“The pandemic really did change things,” she says.
She's seeing more demand for technology roles in their manufacturing plants as more processes are digitized.
“The demand is higher than we can supply, so we need to find efficiencies within our operations,” she says.
Data is another growth area.
“There is tons of data coming off our lines,” she says. “How do we make better decisions based on it?”
Nurturing Tech-Enabled Employers
Kim recently joined the first cohort of Tech Talent Plus, a virtual program TechImpact launched in New Brunswick in November, to help tech and non-IT companies and government overcome the challenges of recruiting highly skilled technical talent.
“We started Tech Talent Plus in response to demand from all types of companies asking for recruitment support for top-tier tech roles,” says Cathy Simpson, TechImpact’s CEO. “A lot has changed in tech recruitment since the pandemic, particularly with the rise of remote work and global competition. We saw a need to provide guidance and expertise as HR leaders change the way they recruit for growth in tech positions. Tech Talent Plus brought global learnings to local HR leaders to assist them with their recruitment.”
While McCain is relatively mature in its digital transformation and much larger than most participants, who tend to be from small and medium-sized businesses, Tech Talent Plus was designed for participants to share their learnings around tech recruitment and retention. The program content resonated with much of Kim’s experience.
“I related to many of the practices and tips provided,” she says. “And then I was able to share our story and some of the things we're doing to reinforce that messaging.”
She got some ideas, too. She realized McCain needed to increase its presence on social media platforms, especially around digital opportunities. In January, they launched Tech@McCain on LinkedIn to raise brand awareness and help external candidates learn more about the technology department at McCain.
“We wanted to showcase how you can have a very exciting career in IT at McCain, that we've got cutting-edge technology systems,” she says.
This is just one example of the job opportunities here in Atlantic Canada. Despite the layoffs globally, there is a lot of positive growth in our tech sector and workforce.
If you need help with tech recruiting, contact us to be notified when registration for the next Tech Talent Plus cohort launches.