ALW23

Hi all, newbie here.

My husband and I have been discussing for some time a move to Canada. We are both 27 with 2 children; 5 and 3 months. My husband is a bricklayer; apparently they are in demand over there.
What I would like, if anyone is able to help, is for an idea on best areas to raise a family ie good schools, healthcare etc we would like to be near the ocean but this is not essential. We obviously don’t want anywhere with extreme winter months due to my husbands job.
I have worked in a bank for 10 years, 3 as a banking advisor and 6 as a mortgage advisor.

Does anyone know price per brick over there? The trade is booming here at the moment so this is obviously a big consideration. We have current savings of around £15,000. Would this be enough to initially move over with? We would have £132,000 from the sale of our house but we’re thinking of renting it out initially so we have somewhere to return to should things not work out.

Is there anything else I should be considering? Sorry if I’m missing any major information out.
Any help appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Amy

Atlantic Xpat

That the majority of houses are wooden and don't use bricks?

ALW23

Oh wow. It seems we have been misinformed....

Atlantic Xpat

Where do you hear that? Majority of residential construction is wooden with siding/clapboard/stucco rather than brick. Commercial construction is wooden/steel frame with paneling systems over insulation. At least in my part of the world that's the case.




If brickies are required in Canada, then where they are required will dictate where you can move. Your definition of extreme winter months may differ from the Canadian definition but construction workers either seem to work through the winter - the guys building an extension for me currently work inside when the weather is crappy and get to the clapboard when it's better - or take the winter off on EI. (Dole). Or have another job for the winter.

I imagine you have some transferable experience and skills then. But you'll be competing against locals for what I presume are quite sought after jobs.

No idea on the price per brick. Nor, for that matter on whether you have enough money to move over on as thats going to be absolutely linked to where you might live. So Vancouver? Not enough. Nova Scotia? Certainly enough.

Expanded on my pithy but rather unhelpful initial response. :-)

ALW23

Thank you, that’s all really helpful. So on the brickie front, a couple of gangs have left the site he was on before Christmas to go over to Canada as apparently there is so much work?! A man my husband knows returned in 2016 due to family circumstances but he was there for 5 years and said there’s so much work.
When we did our visa eligibility assessment it was mentioned in the reply too and on the list of required tradesmen.
I agree that my skills will be very common so I would probably struggle to secure employment. This won’t be an issue if we were to stay here in the U.K. as the plan is to stay home with the baby until he starts school but definitely a big consideration.
Thanks again for your reply, I think we may need to reconsider!
Amy

Aviator

I know a brickie who immigrated a few years back. He could not get work with bricks, but lots of work for stick on bricks and rocks. Not sure this would get someone a visa or not, but not sure if this would get validated for a TWP.
Best to come over and meet prospective employers.

Another option is gain experience in a different trade, carpenter for example and look at moving in a few years. To get trade certified, need to be able to prove 9000 hours experience and sit the inter-provincial trade exam.

Almost Canadian

Move to Plymouth if you are not already there!

christmasoompa

Nowhere near, sorry. To get PR you'd need to show you have at least $23,181 in your bank account but that has to be shown both when you apply and when you enter Canada, so you'd need all the other costs on top of it and moving a family abroad unfortunately isn't cheap. This thread has some useful figures in - http://britishexpats.com/forum/canad...canada-735341/. But if you sell your house then you would be fine.

Not sure about a price per brick, but to give you an idea of what he could expect to earn, you can look at the Jobbank website. $32 an hour is the average, so assuming a 37.5 hour week it would be about $76,000 a year, so equivalent to about £42,000 to give you a rough idea at least.

As said above, brickies aren't usually said to be in demand in Canada (a quick search of the forum will bring up relevant threads), so you'd need to just go wherever the work is and may not get much choice in the matter.

I don't think we have any brickies on the forum but you never know, we may do and they may be able to advise on the best province/area to target.

Best of luck.

Bow21

My dad is a bricklayer and when we lived there 11 years ago he was on $27 an hour and that was what he started on until his employer saw his capabilities. I was looking for electrician jobs in around Calgary and found bricklaying jobs too $35/$38 an hour.

scilly

I live in Vancouver, often called the Banana Belt of Canada because the climate is so much milder than elsewhere in the country.

This does NOT mean that it is really mild ........ it actually is very close to where I grew up in Lancashire.

Most houses here are built of wood, with clapboard or stucco siding. Some of the newer ones are having "decorative" trim of brick or stone tiles added on round the lower level.

Houses not built of wood are generally built of concrete.

Brick is being used as low walls (ie, about 2-3' high) around gardens on lots about 33' or 40' wide by 122' deep

Buildings higher than 3 or 4 storeys are built of concrete, although wood is also becoming commonly used for some of them.

In other words ................ I rarely see brick layers at work.


Plus Vancouver is almost prohibitively expensive.

BTW ............. construction continues through the winter here, even when the temperature dips below 0C or the rain is torrential. Workers just wear warmer or wet weather clothing


I know a lot of the older houses in parts of Ontario and maybe Quebec were built of brick ............... but I don't know whether that is still the case.

DandNHill

All the new houses in Ontario are brick.
Although they are timber frame and there is only one layer of brick. But you still need the skills to build those walls.

dbd33

My understanding is that no one wants jobs putting bricks on houses, there's more money in blockwork for industrial buildings. Hence the quality of the work on houses.

DandNHill

Yes quality is debatable. So maybe his skill set is transferable to commercial building?

dbd33

I believe so.

Atlantic Xpat

Mainland sophisticates...few can afford such luxuries in construction here. :-) Vinyl is primary choice, wooden clapboard and derivatives of strong second.