A bit of a follow up after about a month of searching for the elusive LMIA job from within Canada. Literally hundreds of resumes have been sent out, there has been a few replies from legitimate employers out there but none of them worked out for one reason or another. Primary one, I believe, is that with only having a high school education they are looking for people who could advance within their operations.
Came across pages on FB of people having LMIA jobs available, one site is targeting people from a certain country, probably lots of different pages for different countries out there. During discussions and interviews, phone or video with employers, 4 of them now have offered jobs in exchange for $8- 10K in cash or variations of cash. Had a real interesting conversation with the last one, a supposed agent for a few different employers.
The conversation went like this: Q. I thought employees weren't supposed to have to give money for a LMIA job? A. Come on, get real and stop wasting my time, there are no free LMIA jobs out there anymore.
So I guess if you don't have the $$ to give them, when you are applying from within Canada, that LMIA job will continue to be very elusive unless you come across an honest employer at the right time and place.