Alberta is where the work is

[fdk511]

But you can make the argument about conditions on the ground to anything happening in North America: education, housing, banking etc It still shouldn't lead to a decision paralysis for a large period of time (I am stating this only based on your descriptions of job search results to date and given that you are considering that you may lose your PR status soon).

I think you have explained yourself enough on this thread and elsewhere as to the challenges you have faced in finding gainful employment, and I am not challenging your rationale for not moving - I understand completely. Given that you are still being vague about the exact qualifications at least one of you holds, I don't think anyone on this thread can guide or direct you to specific cities/towns/provinces etc and it is not apparent if that feedback will be deemed helpful by you either. You have a right to privacy, so you don't have to tell us anything at all. But it is also unfair to tell those who have made some suggestions that all is lost in the Canadian job market OR a particular technique just won't work for you at all.

Generalizations are always a dangerous and slippery road - but some market trends do make themselves obvious. The exception in Alberta today of course, is the falling oil price which makes the Oil and Gas upstream business and the related EPC industry somewhat fickle. But the petrochemical industry hasn't slowed down.

In fact you have explained your current setup to be in a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the US. In your shoes, I would be hard-pressed to find the motivation to move to another country, especially Canada where the culture is highly similar but you may have to face initial hurdles which can set you back significantly. Including myself, some of my friends and former-colleagues from the US who did apply to Canada and then moved were folks on F-1/H1B status who were not sure about the chances of making it all the way through to the US permanent residency process due to the economic uncertainty at that time.

All the best with your decision making - which is, again, highly personal

 

[on-hold]

Everything you write is so vague that it is impossible for anyone to give you any real advice -- you were just asked directly if your profession is regulated or not, and replied with 400 words, none of which answered the question. In every single post you refer to yourself as middle class, professional, this or that -- why are you afraid of actually giving information about yourself on this forum?

Your attempt to find a place to settle is similar. You won't use unemployment figures as a guide, and instead refer to 'delicate and precise conditions on the ground' -- but you can't explain what these conditions are. If this debate is vague, it's because you constantly force it in that direction. From what I understand from your previous posts, you've been applying to jobs in Canada for nearly two years -- and similarly to your total lack of precision about what you do and where you want to live, you also have an unspecified suspicion of recruitment companies, which do not seem to you to be 'real'.

Here are some facts.

1) If your ideal job is classified as a true government position, you will never get one from America. If you're applying in Alberta, you won't get one from B.C. By true gov. position, I mean a bureaucrat.

2) If your ideal job is something like nurse or policeman, you won't get one from America. In Canada these are well-paying, desirable jobs, that are paid for by different layers of government.

3) If your ideal job is in a non-regulated position, you won't get one from America. Why? Because there are plenty of candidates in Canada. Why would they trust you when you say you're a permanent resident? The fact is, you won't be, soon -- your PR status will depend on you getting across the border without meeting the RO. Anyone with a PR card could stay outside of canada for 5 years, decide they want to go back, and claim to still be PRs. They would be -- but if the HR department takes a chance on them, and they get caught at the border, then their time is wasted.

4) You ARE an economic migrant. You want to live in Canada, but you want to step off the plane into a middle-class life. Well, there are Canadians who want to be middle-class too, and you're competing at a disadvantage with them (see #3).

5) If your ideal job is a regulated position, and you're qualified (and that means registered), then you do have a chance at getting a job at a distance. It's not a good chance, and it would require you to choose a remote community. As an example, in the 1990s I tried to find a teaching job from America -- I got one interview, in northern Saskatchewan. In 2010, I tried to find a job in Canada, like you, before I had moved there. Only one person out of hundreds of inquiries expressed interest -- an ABE teaching job in a remote valley in Labrador. And, neither of these places hired me.

6) The fact that you've qualified for immigration does NOT mean that there are large numbers of jobs waiting for you. I immigrated to Canada as a college instructor with a specialty in biology/anatomy (see how easy it is to give specific information?) -- but in all the time that I was immigrating, and for several years afterwards, I never saw a single job I could apply for. There was a glut, not a surplus.

7) I worked in an employment agency in Edmonton. Broken-down middle-aged men with no education would arrive from Nova Scotia -- they'd do day labour for a week to buy shoes and join the union, then they'd get hired at a union job shovelling dirt up north at 35 bucks an hour. They wanted to work, and did something about it. I landed in Canada, and two weeks later had a job in grocery store. Four years later, I'm a senior public health manager at a provincial level. Honestly, looking at your hundred posts over the last two weeks, it's clear that you don't and to try -- you're building a case for yourself for why you don't have to go to Canada. That's why no data is good enough for you -- there's always something not known, some flaw in the job search process, something 'off' about the placement agency. It's fine -- you don't have to immigrate here, Canadian immigration is for people who want to live here. People who want to live here, move here.

8) Why won't you even tell us if your profession is regulated or not? Immigration is not for obsessively secret people, it requires you to uproot yourself and settle into a new community and a new professional network.

 

[david1697]

on hold, I didn't read what you wrote above, so I am not going to respond to whatever you posted.

Just to remind you that since I noticed you had some personal issues and were getting confrontational, I have decided to not participate in any further discussions with you. And I mentioned it in my previous reply to you.

Best regards.

 

[david1697]

But you can make the argument about conditions on the ground to anything happening in North America: education, housing, banking etc It still shouldn't lead to a decision paralysis for a large period of time (I am stating this only based on your descriptions of job search results to date and given that you are considering that you may lose your PR status soon).

I think you have explained yourself enough on this thread and elsewhere as to the challenges you have faced in finding gainful employment, and I am not challenging your rationale for not moving - I understand completely. Given that you are still being vague about the exact qualifications at least one of you holds, I don't think anyone on this thread can guide or direct you to specific cities/towns/provinces etc and it is not apparent if that feedback will be deemed helpful by you either. You have a right to privacy, so you don't have to tell us anything at all. But it is also unfair to tell those who have made some suggestions that all is lost in the Canadian job market OR a particular technique just won't work for you at all.

Generalizations are always a dangerous and slippery road - but some market trends do make themselves obvious. The exception in Alberta today of course, is the falling oil price which makes the Oil and Gas upstream business and the related EPC industry somewhat fickle. But the petrochemical industry hasn't slowed down.

In fact you have explained your current setup to be in a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the US. In your shoes, I would be hard-pressed to find the motivation to move to another country, especially Canada where the culture is highly similar but you may have to face initial hurdles which can set you back significantly. Including myself, some of my friends and former-colleagues from the US who did apply to Canada and then moved were folks on F-1/H1B status who were not sure about the chances of making it all the way through to the US permanent residency process due to the economic uncertainty at that time.

All the best with your decision making - which is, again, highly personal

fdk511,

This is not a personal advise to you, but to anyone who comes online , reads posts and gives advise: try not to get personal and/or defensive.

Don't read into posts more than there actually is. When you make these interpretations you accidentally may project things that are inherent in your own perception, that reflect your thought habits but have no relevance to what you are replying to or to person who is in need of advise.
And please don't assume that the person who posts questions is necessarily ignorant, just because they ask a question that sounds too obvious to you or because complexity of the question doesn't allow you to give a meaningful suggestion.

The best thing one can do under such circumstances is to ignore the post and walk away or say "I wish I could help you but unfortunately I don't know the answer". That's better than trying to bring the other down or engaging in some senseless and aimless personal argument when someone is in contemplation to take or not to take an action that can have a serious impact on number of people, including their children.

I am not going to Canada unless I know that I and my spouse can get a professional job there. Preferably before we ruin our savings and end up looking for a welfare. At very least I must be able get a job and provide for all of my family, until she is able to find employment and help me out. It's our decision. We decided this for ourselves, we don't decide for other people, we only take responsibility for ourselves and our children.
And it's our decision not to take too drastic risk (and it is very real , not illusory, risk to become jobless and homeless if we can't get a job, or can only get a survival job, thus making our lives completely miserable in Canada).

If you would prefer to do something else in my shoes or did otherwise, that's great. That's your life and your decision. Do you think we should do what worked best for you? If yes, why? If not then what is the issue?

There are some people here who gave me VERY VALUABLE ANSWERS AND ADVISE, among them AtHomeInMontreal and scylla.
I am very grateful to them, especially to AtHomeInMontreal.

If you can do the same I will be grateful to you as well. If you can't, that's ok, nobody says you must answer my questions or reply to my posts or do or decide something for me.
It's fine if you just let me be and I will do the same to you.

Regarding being middle class in US and finding it difficult to have motivation to move, I think it's like anything else in life: it depends on what you want in life and what you value and how much. I have written about this on different threads (and you seem to be familiar with my posts in past), where I explained about the main reasons why we would move to Canada from US if we could, even if we earned less in Canada than in US, how my wife thinks it would be good for our kids and etc. I am not going to repeat all that again, but just to highlight that as I post this here now we have different reasons than those who move from US to Canada because they can't get PR in US as F1 or H1 non-immigrants. If this was our dilemma today we wouldn't be asking any questions, we would pack up and go, because certainly of permanent status beats temporary one anytime you have to choose between these two countries. But it doesn't apply to us at this point of our life. So, you will make wrong assumptions if you assume we have the same motivations or could be motivated by the same as someone else when our circumstances may be different.

With this, let me thank you for your earlier replies. And please don't take anything personally. We are just trying to navigate our path the best we can under the circumstances we are.

Wish you all the best!

 

[fdk511]

Here is my respectful pushback: this is not an invitation-only forum, but a public forum where anyone can express an opinion. So we all did. Just because our answers were not to your liking doesn't mean that you should ask us to refrain from replies

With the exception of on-hand, who has a unique and direct style of communicating, everyone who has replied to your job-search-related posts has been extremely polite and helpful and yet when they asked you the exact same question: what exactly is your profession, a response has not been available.. Some of these folks have been very helpful to others on other threads when they were able to understand the background. How can they extend the same experience/advantage to you when you can't/won't provide them with more details - again a personal decision on your part which only limits the type of assistance you can expect from a group of strangers.

I agree there is something confrontational and defensive here, but I would turn the mirror towards you - to me, restraining yourself from telling anyone your profession but then expecting a meaningful dialogue is not an efficient way of spending time.

In fact, if you re-read my post, you will find that I am agreeing with your decision not to move until you have something substantial in hand.

However, I don't wish to hijack this thread, as I suspect has become the case with this discussion which is not leading anywhere as far as I am concerned.

 

[david1697]

Let me put it simply: you shouldn't judge me or berate me ,or anyone else who comes to this forum , for our personal choices.

Thank you for your understanding.

 

[on-hold]

I'm going to leave this here for anyone else who comes across this thread, and is interested in its original subject. I worked for a while at an employment training program for a social service agency in Edmonton. We would train semi-homeless people, both men and women, for labouring jobs up in northern Alberta -- that meant basically helping them write resumes and get their safety 'tickets' (anyone who wants to work in Northern Alberta can save time by getting these ahead of time, they include CSTS, WHYMS, and H2Alive as the most important). These are people with addictions, years out of the labour force, all kinds of issues. They would finish the programs and get jobs that paid 22 - 38 dollars an hour, just cleaning, shoveling, or driving. Once up there, if they do a good job and built their skills, they'll move up very, very fast. The average household income in Fort Mac is $180,000.

I talked with an Irish guy who came through because he was broke. Unlike the others, he had a degree from a construction institute in Ireland, no addictions, and was young and healthy. He needed day work so he could afford union dues and boots; he told me how in Ireland there are three places in the world that are famous for anyone being able to go and get a job that makes a bundle of money -- Perth Australia, Fort McMurray Canada, and I forget the 3rd, it was either Dubai or North Dakota. I didn't see him after two weeks, I assume he got a job that pays a giant truckload of money -- he had the skills and temperament that succeed in Fort Mac.

In Edmonton and Calgary, unlike anywhere else I've ever been, there's no real status difference between blue collar and white collar jobs, because the pay is the same. People with white-collar professions will train as pipefitters, get their 'tickets', and go up north to work. This means that not only is the labour market excellent for trades, it is excellent for white-collar positions. People move often -- losing a job in Alberta is not the disaster it is in BC. Banks, offices, everywhere, have trouble keeping workers because of the churn -- here labour has the bargaining power, not capital. Unions are strong and provide useful services. White collar jobs are in demand as well, though with more particulars than blue collar. Half the professionals I know are married to welders, private contractors, etc.

The original poster has worked himself into a tizzy of privacy and confused analysis -- somehow he imagines that the labour market that is the best in Canada and one of the best anywhere in the English-speaking world and renowned in other depressed countries, has strange 'on-the-ground' particulars that he needs to know about but can't identify. At the same time, he is for some reason unable to reveal his profession. That's fine, it's his choice, and it's prevented him from getting specific information. This post is for anyone who is considering moving to Alberta -- prepare ahead of time, arrive willing to work, and there will be jobs for you, though you might want to monitor the price of oil and see how it impacts specific sectors.

 

[david1697]

The original poster has worked himself into a tizzy of privacy and confused analysis -- somehow he imagines that the labour market that is the best in Canada and one of the best anywhere in the English-speaking world and renowned in other depressed countries, has strange 'on-the-ground' particulars that he needs to know about but can't identify. At the same time, he is for some reason unable to reveal his profession. That's fine, it's his choice, and it's prevented him from getting specific information.

I said I will ignore the poster above addressing me, but that doesn't mean I will tolerate him perpetually falsifying my statements and putting his words into my mouth.

As far as economy in Alberta is concerned I asked whether job market in Alberta is similar to what we have where I am now (and explained in rather extended details what it is like where I am), and expressed my firm intent not to move anywhere a job market is like where I am now. Needless to say, I would not have asked whether Alberta's "good jobs" economy is similar to ours' here, had I been certain what it is like in Alberta. I rather need to know how it actually is, in Alberta and elsewhere.

"On the grounds" statement was addressed to user fdk511 in the context of him questioning "why wouldn't you go Alberta if you were in trades", and I stand by my response, because no reasonable person can deny the fact that things on the ground (in general, no matter where you are , what trade you are in or how qualified you are) may not be what they are in sound bites, advertising materials and catch-lines. People in Marketing and PR industry would be out of job if things in real life were as simple as they are hired to make it appear. Even this individual who posts here under nick name "on hold" admitted how he spent a year in a grocery store, doing a survival job, most likely for a minimum wage. Why didn't he just go to North Alberta to collect "truckload of money" (fitting pipes or operating cranes?) , just as he says Irish man did, no less than almost the next day after being broke and arriving to Alberta?
Who is he trying to dupe here?


In regards to job placement agencies, I responded to one of the posters referring me to placement agencies I am well familiar with from US. Anyone who lived in US the past decade and knows anything about serious job search can testify that those specific placement agencies I was referred to have changed their modus operandi in past 6 years in US (And since US companies, once they adopt certain business model, implement it universally, I asked whether they do the same in Canada. BTW, the person who posted referral answered that indeed, they do the same in Canada now). It's no secret to anyone in US that, unlike in old days, those agencies don't really place anyone to temp or perm jobs, not anymore. All they actually do is compete with half dozen other 'matchmakers' in collecting your resume and referring it to hiring HR's of few scarce hiring firms (their clients), at a rate of two or three referrals out of 200 or more resumes they receive for each vacancy every day. Why would I want to waste my time on hiring agency like that, knowing they are of no practical use? What is unreasonable about asking for Canadian placement/staffing agencies, if any are legitimate and truly helpful (like ours were in years past)?


Finally, I have no obligation to reveal my profession or specialty to anyone on public forum and it should not be a condition to provide a straightforward answer to a question about true state of job market in any State or Province, but I did write to another poster, when asked politely, that I am looking into more than one industry and prefer to find a job where I could utilize my reading, analytical,legal, researching and bilingual skills, among others.
Someone who asserts to have read over 100 of my posts surely must have noticed it as well. Or was it another lie, about having read and being familiar with everything I have posted on this board?

Who is this person anyway? Is he hired by PR department of job advertising company in Alberta? Is he going to be fired from his job because someone asks whether job market in Alberta is worth moving over and better than that of Ontario or any other province?
Why is he taking posts of some casual visitor so personally and keeps insulting and personally attacking someone he doesn't know (called my statements "gibberish", myself "one of a kind!" who "doesn't understand" and etc., all unprovoked and out of the blue?).
Why he keeps at it even after being told that getting into personal argument is not what the other is looking for?

 

[on-hold]

Heh-heh, that's a good one -- you'll report me to the moderators for providing data on the job market in Alberta? 'On the ground' data yet, which you seem to crave so much, and yet don't recognize when you get it . . .

I worked in a grocery store for a year because I landed in Victoria and survived there for a year on minimum wage, and took care of my family too. I moved to Alberta to have a career. I didn't come to Canada expecting to be handed a middle-class existence on a silver platter, and I've earned the life I have now. I didn't work in Fort Mac because my wife wanted to go to school, there are good jobs for me in Edmonton, and I personally am not a fan of the resource extraction industry. Why would I lie to you? You are an anonymous poster on a public forum. Canada has five big job markets, three small job markets, and the Maritimes. These are easily distinguished by basic data. Choose one, or stay home.

My last post has almost nothing to do with you -- I put it there because there are many people interested in the specifics of working in Alberta, the title of this thread is about Alberta, and the information on safety tickets is useful, not even many Canadians know about them.

 

[david1697]

What you were or weren't looking for is your business. What I look for is mine.

Correction: Not for providing data on the job market in Alberta, but for perpetually falsifying my statements and hurling insults and personally attacking me when I merely ask what job market in Alberta truly is like.

 

[mrbeachman]

There was another poster here who was married to a Thai woman. His wife had some kind a career as a financial advisor in the Thai bank that was bought by Scotia several years ago. He came onto this forum asking for advice if she could get a job in Montreal out of all places. After I said that Thai banking system has nothing to do with Canada and how she would have to start from zero, he went onto an epic rant how he would report me to moderators and many other amusing things. Hilarious.

On-Hold wrote some interesting stuff there.

May I just add that only people who get jobs from another country in Canada are the ones that are transferred within a company. My ex used to work for a relocation company and there would be a lot of transfers within companies such as Suncor, Electronic Arts, Ubi Soft.... basically any foreign company that had presence in Canada. This is how many French, British, USA and even Indian citizens get jobs in Canada. Otherwise, forget about it.

 

[david1697]

I don't know about Thai prospects of getting a banking job in Canada, we are in US and can only speak of our experience as a family located in US and granted a Canadian Permanent Residence status.

I have no objections to anyone writing anything, interesting or not, as long as I am not being insulted and my statements are not being twisted and falsified.

 

[Katayoon]

Well, it never works like that though as most employers want you to have permanent status before even considering your job applications. Nobody wants to bother with applying for work permit on behalf of employee

Immigration should always follow those steps :

Discovery => Work => Integration => Permanent status

 

[Jinuvik]

Immigration should always follow those steps :

Discovery => Work => Integration => Permanent status

Then a country fill up its need more accurately.

And it is easier for the immigrant as he is not expecting anything. Unfortunately, jobs shortages as indicated by CIC are not always true.

 

[Jinuvik]

Well, it never works like that though as most employers want you to have permanent status before even considering your job applications. Nobody wants to bother with applying for work permit on behalf of employee

Wrong. It works like that for all CEC applicants for example.