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As Montreal’s unemployment rate hovers near record-low levels, an economic development agency is trying to encourage more international students to stay after graduation, but while those students say they see opportunities in the city, many are still on the fence about staying.

Sven James graduated from Concordia University in 2010, with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering. James, who is from Antigua, got a post-graduate work permit and found a job in the city.

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In 2013, he went to England to do a master’s degree. While he originally planned to return to Montreal, he ultimately went back to Antigua.

The decision came after he saw many of his Concordia classmates, including some who had grown up in Montreal, leave the city, looking for opportunities elsewhere.

“From what I was hearing my friends saying, the salaries they were making out in Silicon Valley, or even in Vancouver or Toronto kind of dwarfed what I was making in Montreal, or even what I could make in Montreal,” he said. “So I figured if I’m going to go for the career option, I would want to try and migrate out west, or if I want to do my own thing, I’d probably move back home.”