Outsourcing in Canada??

[ailsagirl]

I was wondering if Canada outsources employees and, if it does, does it pay them way below minimum wage?

I heard that it does (pay far below what it would normally pay) and I've also heard it is obliged to pay the same for a foreign employee as a it would a citizen. Does anyone know which is true?

Also, I know that dental care isn't covered-- do most people just pay it out of pocket or is there a good dental plan available that's not too pricey??

Thank you!

[C_Banana]

1. It doesn't really come up in the news here

It does happen to a certain extent. We can still buy products that were made in China. It's not as much of a problem here as in the US for a few reasons.

1) More of our economy is based on commodities such as lumber and oil. You can't outsource oil drilling.

2) Canada as a whole tends to be less consumer oriented than the US. For whatever reason we tend to import less than the US does. Combined with point one, this helps us have a trade surplus.

3) Our health care system. Because of our health care system, corporations do need to pay their employees' health insurance. This makes it less expensive to hire someone in Canada as opposed to the US.

[ailsagirl]

2. Thanks for the info, C_banana-- what about dental?

What do most people do in terms of dental insurance?

[Mother Jones]

3. My response is strictly based on what I know from living in the GTA

I can't comment on the rest of the provinces.

Here in Ontario, we actually have benefitted quite alot from the U.S outsourcing. Remembering that 'outsourcing' really started approx. 5 years ago. (for my I/T employer at least)
Back then, our dollar was not as strong, and it was still cheaper to put business here. That said, we actually won alot more outsourced work than we probably lost. My own division has approx. 500 employees that were a direct result of low-cost labour, and were moved from the U.S to here....that's only 1 small part of an I/T giant - other divisions would have seen alot of growth as well.


Re: dental - If you don't land a job with an employer that offers great benefits, yes, there is always insurance you can buy. This will sound odd, but I have found my benefits package (which is customizable) to be extremely robust and actually improving year after year.

Funny thing is, my employer is one of the largest U.S corporations. Yet, we Canadian employees have much better benefits, alot more holidays, vacation ,etc... than my U.S counterparts!

[HamiltonHabs32]

4. I work for an outsourcer

In fact in the past 3 years I have worked for two diffrent outsourcers, one for HP and one for Tmobile.

Both jobs paid 10 bucks an hour, which is above the min. wage.

And I do get full benefits