JamesM

Having spent a few minutes in the immigration section recently for the first time in some months/ years it got me thinking about life in Canada for immigrants and how for many it turns in to quite the bum deal. Anyway I don't recall these articles being passed round before and they do raise some interesting points and analysis. The Land of Misfortune article I think is one that many relate too:

Why the world’s best and brightest struggle to find jobs in Canada - Macleans.ca

Unemployment’s up for Canada’s most educated immigrants | Globalnews.ca

MillieF

Really most interesting James...if, depressing. Many thanks for posting.

Zoe Bell

Just skim read the article at the moment because I'm at work

but one thing that did leap out at me was this paragraph "with most employers saying they assume a foreign name meant the worker had poor English"

I'm afraid to say that I can understand where they are coming from. I had to change the walk in clinic I use because I couldn't make myself understood enough to book an appointment ( I don't speak Cantonese). If I go to Timmies ( not for me , the work run) I have to write my order down because again , they don't understand me.

Language issues, perceived or actual are the biggest factor in how successful you will be in gaining employment.

ann m

Language skills are undoubtedly an issue - but I'm pleased to say that my employer certainly has no hesitation in interviewing immigrants.

In my department, we are about 1/3 immigrants - I don't know if that is unusual or average.

We have two Philippinos, three Brits, one Polish, one Chinese, one Indian, one Mexican, one Russian and one Taiwanese. Sounds like the start of a joke. We certainly have a mix of really strong accents (except mine of course ) - but language skills are high.

itsasmallworld

Interesting articles. Thanks for posting. Lots of interesting points including the sifting out process that Canadian employers, inundated with resumes, might routinely use such as discounting foreign experience (clearly reflected in posts on this forum).

Pizzawheel

Ontario is certainly the worst offender when it comes to recognising overseas qualifications. They exist in a vacuum that even the USA would find impressive.

JamesM

That's what the one article points too.

A highly qualified person with a good job comes from the US. Can't get a job here and then heads back and is snapped up by Amazon.

I've been working in the Digital Recruitment space the last 8 months and I'm actually astounded at how some employers decide who to interview.

In some cases I get the English thing as work is meant to be a place of collaboration. At the same time though if someone is not being exposed to English in a familiar work environment to them then how will they pick up the appropriate work jargon. It's chicken and egg....

MikeUK

That 'who you know, not what you know' prevailed in my last place at work..

In a crazy way they gave preference to internal referrals, it didn't matter how bad they were if somebody had vouched for them

you could almost say we hired full time friendly popular Canadian idiots to supervise the skilled temporary workers on short term contracts....

Shard

In the current UK debate on immigration, there is invariably reference to "an Australian style points system" which is a bit odd as, according to Macleans, Canada was first to introduce such a system. Nevertheless a moot point if it is to be phased out next year.

On the US/Canada immigrant wage gap, it is surely that the US has a much larger financial market, Silicon Valley and a huge oil industry that pulls in large numbers of highly paid specialists. Canada simply does not have the economic scale to support the number of professionals that immigrate.

colchar

This issue is not as cut and dried as some make it seem - there are a lot of issues involved.

For example, many of these people might be educated in their home countries but those educations are not necessarily up to the standards of a Canadian education.

When I was in my PhD program there was a guy from Pakistan in the Master's program in my department. He had applied for the PhD program because he already had a Master's from Pakistan but had only been granted admission to the Master's program here. He said that his family was pissed about that but that, after a few weeks here, he realized that the school had made the right decision because his education simply wasn't up to the standards of the educations the Canadian students in the program had.

In Pakistan he had received a Bachelor's degree after only two years of study and a Master's after a further two years of study. But here in Canada those four years of university education would only earn you a Bachelor's degree. He received a B.A. in half the time that it takes a Canadian student to earn one so how can that degree possibly be considered as equal to a Canadian degree? And despite already having that Master's from Pakistan he was far behind the Canadian students in the Master's program in terms of knowledge, skills, etc. so how can a degree like that, which was clearly not up to Canadian standards, be considered in any way equal to the equivalent degree here in Canada?

Now if someone comes here with a degree, or degrees, from countries such as the US, UK, Australia, or similar countries that is one thing as those degrees are equal to ours. But people coming here with degrees from countries like India, Pakistan, etc. have degrees that are simply not up to Canadian standards and they should not be treated as if they are for employment purposes.

Then one also has to take into account the work culture here compared to places like India. A former employer of my brother's sent him to India for several months to run their office there and he said the work cultures were night and day. He said that, in India, people with ideas were often afraid to speak up and explain those ideas because they showed deference to those above them, and that those above them would often shoot them down the moment they opened their mouths. And from what he said, it was even worse for women than for men. He didn't like any of that and, because he was there from head office and was in charge for the time that he was there, he made a concerted effort to change the culture in that office. It worked to some degree but he really had to encourage people to speak up because they were almost in fear of those above them. By the time he left he said the culture had changed somewhat but he is not sure how long that lasted after he left because a few months later he was offered a position with another company in Toronto and changed jobs.

Are people coming from that kind of work culture really prepared to walk into roles here in Canada similar to those that they held in a place like India? If someone was in management there and wasn't used to listening to those below them, especially women, are they really suited for a similar role in a more liberal country like Canada? Should they not start out in a lower position, learn how things are done here, and then work their way back up rather than simply walking into a similar role here?

Even professionals, like doctors, might not have the required skills. Several years ago I broke one of my fingers in three places. I have broken countless bones over the years so I knew it was broken. This happened on a weekend so my family doctor wasn't in which necessitated a trip to a walk-in clinic. When the Indian doctor saw me he insisted that my finger was not broken, but that I had an infection of some sort because my fingers were rather reddish/pink (this often happens to me during the winter so was nothing unusual). He then grabbed a small razor blade, slit my finger to draw out the puss, and couldn't understand why only blood was coming out.

I left and went to another walk-in clinic in town where an old friend from high school worked as a nurse. She got me in to see a doctor, who happened to be Canadian, and when he looked at my finger the first thing he said was "that's broken". He sent me for x-rays which confirmed that it was, indeed, broken. After he had set my finger I returned to the original walk-in clinic, asked to see the Indian doctor again, and when I did I handed him my x-rays and asked that he explain to me again how my fingers were infected, not broken. He, of course, had no explanation.

The bottom line is that this is not a cut and dried issue - those coming from other countries do not, necessarily, have education, skills, and experience that are equal to Canadian education, skills, and experience and they should not be treated as if they do.

Almost Canadian

One assumes that such issues arise when such immigrants seek work in the US or UK. How do you account for the fact that, when they do, their salaries reach the same as the locals far sooner than appears to be the case in Canada?

JamesM

Yes I was thinking the same.

But is it institutional racism/discrimination or is it the system in Canada pulls in a miss match of skills for the jobs that are available?

When you look at the whole making people re-qualify thing you can go further and say the system then discriminates on top of the mis-matching.

In the main an immigrant is smarter going to the UK or US (if they have the alternative available) so Canada punishes itself twice by failing the pool of skilled immigrants who do show up and also pushing the very brightest elsewhere.

Shard

Why would your bro even attempt to do that? He's imposing his cultural norms on people from another culture. Rather arrogant and naive IMO. Sorry, bro.

Agree with the first part of your post though, that the content of foreign degrees ought to be scrutinised.

Novocastrian

I received a BA (Nat Sci), an MA and a DPhil from a fairly decent University in England in a grand total of six years.

Clearly I'm inferior to a Canadian student who might well have taken 10 years to achieve something vaguely comparable.

Of course, I'm not a Pakistani.

dishwashing

+1 I have found it is much more about contacts and relationships than work. I find that hard to deal with but maybe because I don't like social niceties determining my career path