Hi there,

How is the telecommunications engineering job market at the moment in Canada? Can anybody advice the best places to apply please? Any field, from R&D to consultancy going through teaching. I've heard that Alberta's economy is booming at the moment; are there any opportunities in this field? Also, are the companies in this sector willing to do the paperwork for a work permit?

Any kind of advice will be appreciated.

Nortel's headquarters are in Canada, and I guess there will be plenty of smaller companies around nortel, but maybe someone else in the forum can advice you better

Hi,
My wife and I are Electronics Engineers with experience in the telecom industry, working with Cisco and Nortel equipment.
My wife is working at Nortel in Ottawa (where most of the Nortel's technical jobs are) since 2 week ago. We were lucky because she was working at Nortel in Venezuela (our native country) and she was tranfered to Ottawa.
I am not living in Canada yet (I will arrive to Ottawa this Friday), but as far as I have heard, most of the ICT jobs are located in Ontario, especially in Ottawa, Toronto and Waterloo (where a company called Research in Motion is always looking for telecom people). Ottawa is plenty of ICT companies, however it appears that getting a job is not easy.
It is also true that Alberta is booming, so the decision between Alberta or Ontario is not easy.
Good luck.

Telecom in Alberta sucks big time, few jobs and they don't pay much. Even in Ottawa, technical telecom jobs are not well-paid,e.g. 65k$ for a PhD in R&D.

If you're heading to Alberta, consider wireless comm. for O&G companies: sensor reading, localization techniques for haulers, stuff like that.

Bell Aliant have staff in Alberta. They post jobs on their site and on Workopolis.

Thanks a lot for your answers. Just some questions:

Can I guess 65k$ will be for new PhD graduates with no experience at all?

What are the average salaries for new MSc graduates with no PhD?

Can I guess that at least in Ottawa there are jobs available even if the salaries are not high?

Yep, new graduates. MSc would probably get 50-55, I really don't know exactly but you can always check monster or PEng licensing body in your province. In general, don't count on well-paid hi-tech jobs in Canada, if you want to make real money, move to the US. If you want quality of life, stay in Canada.

A friend of mine has told me that Alcatel and Cisco also have R&D facilities in Canada. However, regarding salaries, I guess it depends on the individuals, but the figures from my friend were a bit different from the ones stated here.