jerry brewer

Hi,
Just a thought
There seems to be lots of posts about finding jobs in canada, anyone know about self employment ?
Is this common in canada,
i.e. certain skilled trades, plumbers, electrician, painters, hairdressers, B&B, etc, to name a few,
Or is most employment thro' an employer / company ?
Are the laws / practices to restictive for self employment ?
Cheers
jerry

Grah

self employment is huge here in almost every field.

Why?

iaink

No, theres lots of self employed, but from a contracting poiont of view, mostly its experienced contractors who have a good reputation who then set up on there own with their list of contacts from their previous jobs to rely on, so to set up in a new country as a contractor could be a problem in that respect. Once again its a lot of "who you know" to get the jobs.

Interested

Self employment is very big in Canada. I think that the Canadian government pretty much tries to encourange start up businesses..they have grants and loans available, provided you can show evidence of a robust business plan.

On the flip side there are also alot of self employed people because taxes are quite high in Canada...alot of work is often done 'under the table', to avoid tax.

Int.

jerry brewer

Hi,
Many thanks all,
It was just a thought, as an alternative to finding an employer, and a way of gaining canadian work experience.
Interesting that there are grants & loans, although they rightly might not be available to a 'new landed person', this might mean that there is other assistance with starting up, paperwork , etc ... that might be.
'google' here I come...
Thanks again
Cheers
Jerry

hot wasabi peas

The 'get a job' approach to employment is something I didn't grow up with and to be honest I'm always surprised that so many people do it rather than becoming self-employed. To me being self employed is normal and among my friends and family in Canada, I only know one person who works for someone else, everyone has their own businesses.

Also it depends on what part of the country you're in as to how prevalent self-emploment is. In my case (Victoria, BC) self-employment is almost a requirement and there is a lot of support for small business and a lot of self-employed people.

If I remember correctly you're thinking of BC right? (Mnemonic - brewer, bc needs more beer ) Here are a few links to explore:

http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/
http://www.beyourownboss.org/
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mangb/smeguide/

Good luck!

flashman

I don't have any references to back this up but in my opinion I think a skilled tradesperson had a better chance of making it in Canada than a "Professional". There seems to be an interesting market developing for tradespeople in helping retirees maintain their properties. Even unskilled opportunities in yard maintenance, housecleaning, snow clearance etc. Of course works best in "Retirement Communities".

The earnings are not too bad either.

jerry brewer

Hi,
Many thanks for your post again, yep still thinking BC, and exploring all the avenues, thinking self employment may be the way to go for us, thanks again for the info & links.
sadly depite the surname, I have no relatives in the trade, no free
and thanks to all who have replied to my question also , I very much appreciate the comments and time taken to reply.
cheers
Jerry