Hi there,
Just a suggestion, have you considered New Zealand as an option to immigrate. I am an Australian who lived an worked in New Zealand for six months. While I was there I met alot of South African immigrants and worked with alot of them, most of them in well paid professions. All of them inwhich I spoke to felt the immigration process was relativley easy and the down time between moving to the country and starting work was minimal. I believe there is a huge South African community in Auckland city, hey they even have their own news paper. The feeling I got was that the were all really happy with the transition
I am now in Canada and am sitting in line waiting for landing immigrant status as are many others. In my experience to transition to living and working in Canada has not been easy, and to tell you the truth if I wasn't immigrating to be with my Canadian soon to be husband I would have packed my bags and gone home.
It is a beautiful country, once you find work the pay is resonable and the people in my opinon are not racist (compared to alot of other countries in is world) and have a good opinon of people who come to this country to make an honest living.
However, I wish some had expressed to me just how competitive it is here to get work. I had a work visa and qualifications and it still took me approx, 6mths to find work. I have 8 years of experience a qualification in my job. I also had to sit many equivilancy exams and licencing exams to get to the point where I was eligable for the jobs available. In total it has cost me almost $10,000 just to be employable. The thing I have found about canada there is a qualification for every job and I mean every job and employers will generally consider the graduate from the college or university they are familiar with over any other. Unfortunatly I also experience a whole lot of mis-information, which is also very fustrating.
Other things to consider, you may not be eligable for a drivers licence, in my case I had to go back to beginners level. Because of this I was not able to purchase a car, because without a provincial drivers licence you can not insure a car and of course it is illegal in this country to own a car without insurance.
Also, you do realize that once you move to another country you will have no credit rating. So any kind of loans are out of the question and until you have perminate residency credit cards are out of the question as well.
Medical, even once you have your PR status you may have a hard time getting a family doctor. I some area's the doctors offices waiting lists are years long. Yes, you will be able to go to emergency however routine medical, immunisations, physical exams etc will only usually be done by family doctors.
Finally one more thing, if you are researching prices of items in canada every thing is plus tax so add that dreded 15% to almost every item you quoted for.
I hope, I have helped by sharing some of the things I have encountered since coming to Canada.
Just a suggestion, have you considered New Zealand as an option to immigrate. I am an Australian who lived an worked in New Zealand for six months. While I was there I met alot of South African immigrants and worked with alot of them, most of them in well paid professions. All of them inwhich I spoke to felt the immigration process was relativley easy and the down time between moving to the country and starting work was minimal. I believe there is a huge South African community in Auckland city, hey they even have their own news paper. The feeling I got was that the were all really happy with the transition
I am now in Canada and am sitting in line waiting for landing immigrant status as are many others. In my experience to transition to living and working in Canada has not been easy, and to tell you the truth if I wasn't immigrating to be with my Canadian soon to be husband I would have packed my bags and gone home.
It is a beautiful country, once you find work the pay is resonable and the people in my opinon are not racist (compared to alot of other countries in is world) and have a good opinon of people who come to this country to make an honest living.
However, I wish some had expressed to me just how competitive it is here to get work. I had a work visa and qualifications and it still took me approx, 6mths to find work. I have 8 years of experience a qualification in my job. I also had to sit many equivilancy exams and licencing exams to get to the point where I was eligable for the jobs available. In total it has cost me almost $10,000 just to be employable. The thing I have found about canada there is a qualification for every job and I mean every job and employers will generally consider the graduate from the college or university they are familiar with over any other. Unfortunatly I also experience a whole lot of mis-information, which is also very fustrating.
Other things to consider, you may not be eligable for a drivers licence, in my case I had to go back to beginners level. Because of this I was not able to purchase a car, because without a provincial drivers licence you can not insure a car and of course it is illegal in this country to own a car without insurance.
Also, you do realize that once you move to another country you will have no credit rating. So any kind of loans are out of the question and until you have perminate residency credit cards are out of the question as well.
Medical, even once you have your PR status you may have a hard time getting a family doctor. I some area's the doctors offices waiting lists are years long. Yes, you will be able to go to emergency however routine medical, immunisations, physical exams etc will only usually be done by family doctors.
Finally one more thing, if you are researching prices of items in canada every thing is plus tax so add that dreded 15% to almost every item you quoted for.
I hope, I have helped by sharing some of the things I have encountered since coming to Canada.
