Amazon Plans to triple workforce in Vancouver

Amazon. com Inc. expects to nearly triple its workforce in Vancouver, where software engineers are cheap, smart and plentiful. The online retail giant plans to occupy a former Canada Post mailing centre being redeveloped into a 1.1 million square-foot office to house 8,000 jobs by 2023, said Jesse Dougherty, a vice- president and Vancouver site lead at Amazon. The company has 2,700 full-time employees at its city hub. It also plans to add 500 jobs in Toronto. A weak loonie, lower wages and a steady flow of graduates make Canada an attractive place to expand for tech companies whose largest expense is labour. The average wage of a software developer in Vancouver last year was US$92,726, compared to US$141,785 in San Francisco, according to real estate firm CBRE Group Inc.