Green energy startups hiring outside Canada despite millions in federal grant dollars

A former employee at a green energy startup in Vancouver says he’s upset some companies are taking advantage of millions of dollars in federal innovation grants, yet still relying on hires from outside Canada – especially as the national unemployment rate went up in August.

“We have plenty of super-talented people who are, right now, out of a job due to these unethical practices that these green energy companies are involved in,” said Shawn Jahromi, a project management consultant in the technology sector.

He said his previous employer hired a COO from the U.K., who began hiring outside the country.

“This individual started hiring project managers offshore after the project managers left from the company. And that’s pretty upsetting because these companies are the beneficiaries of very generous government programs that are meant for the green energy company to create more jobs in our community,” said Jahromi.

Creating local jobs might be the ideal according to Jahromi, but it’s a common practice for smaller green energy startups in Canada to look elsewhere for talent according to UBC economics professor Werner Antweiler.

“It’s really the expertise that matters and bringing in people who have years of training and qualification,” said Antweiler. “That is just not easy to come by, and Canada is a small market, especially for a new industry that hasn’t really established itself widely.”

Antweiler says small and mid-sized companies make up the green energy sector in Canada, which has more welcoming policies for hiring international talent, but the growth potential still lies south of the border.

“Some of the headquarters end up being in the United States – that still means jobs here in Canada, so these companies will still be active and putting up wind farms, and solar farms and other kinds of things,” he said. “We do have a disadvantage here in Canada: we are a smaller country than the United States.”

Jahromi suggests that given the unemployment rate, and plenty of new graduates from top Canadian universities here in B.C., companies need to work harder to provide opportunities locally.

“We’re at 6.6 per cent unemployment rate, and we have a lot of super-talented, very smart people immigrating to Canada,” said Jahromi. “We have students graduating from these universities — there’s an abundance of talent.”