Facebook to Open a Vancouver Office

Does Facebook’s one-year move merit a “like”?

The social media site is recruiting up to 150 recent graduates for a temporary office set to open this spring

Facebook is making the big move from Silicon Valley to Vancouver.

In a statement Facebook said the Vancouver office would serve as a boot camp to train “recent software engineering grads for potential full-time employment.”

Why Vancouver? The Lower Mainland, a hub for development talent, is close to Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters and development office in Seattle.

As TheNextWeb put it: “Facebook is hovering up smart kids and stashing them in Canada until it can transfer them to one of its office in the U.S.”

The office’s one-year expiry date also coincides with the amount of time it takes for skilled immigrants to get the permit necessary for full-time employment.

The social media giant’s presence in Vancouver has also been linked to a new Canadian visa program that will make it easier for U.S.-based companies and investors to set up foreign entrepreneurs in Canada.

Facebook runs an official recruitment program at UBC and University of Waterloo. The tech giant opened its Canadian headquarters in Toronto in 2009, which house its advertising sales, account management and marketing teams for Canada.

What do you think of Facebook’s move to B.C.? Why Vancouver, and why now?