Landing that elusive job in B.C.

Canadian rules and regulations make it very difficult for foreign-trained professionals to become accredited here. Polly Nahar was a professional engineer with 14 years experience before emigrating to Canada in 2002 with husband Syed and son Arka, now 11. She worked at menial jobs while struggling to get accredited and build a new life. When Polly Nahar arrived in Canada in the summer of 2002, she knew she would have to prove her professional expertise, and that it might take some time to find a good job. But the woman who had been a professional engineer in her native Bangladesh, who completed a master's degree at one of the former Soviet Union's best technical schools and who had worked as a civil engineer for 14 years, had no idea how hard her landing here was going to be. After a year of fruitless searching, and more than 100 applications for engineering-related jobs, Nahar's savings were spent, and she was forced to take menial jobs just to keep her family housed. "I had some idea there would be trouble, but I didn't know it would last so long," said Nahar, who took another three years to find her professional feet.

It is a familiar story in immigrant circles in Canada, where government regulations and powerful professional associations combine to make it very difficult for foreign-trained professionals to become accredited here. "From my own experience and sufferings, I can say one thing: We need a little bit of support to have a platform under our feet," Nahar told a packed seminar of skilled immigrants and government accreditation officials in Vancouver last week. After a year of applying for jobs that never materialized, Nahar was forced to apply for income assistance. Her case manager at Employment Insurance sent her to S.U.C.C.E.S.S., the Lower Mainland's largest immigrant assistance agency, for help with job leads and contacts. S.U.C.C.E.S.S. found her a mentor, a professor of civil engineering at the University of B.C., who in turn helped focus her job search. The slow-turning wheels of Russian bureaucracy took three years to produce documents in support of her Soviet education. During that time, she was diligently attending seminars, workshops and professional mixers. She learned to work her new contacts - something she had not even imagined in Bangladesh - checking back with people who had shown interest, sending fresh resumes. She found training money to improve her computer-aided design skills, and selected a school that offered a work-study program. It was a way, she thought, she could get her foot inside the door of an engineering practice. A contact she had been cultivating for more than a year finally came through with an interim job. At night, she continued her computer design courses. In October 2006, she completed a diploma course as a construction technician, and shortly afterward she found an engineering job in civil mining, in the Vancouver office of AMEC, one of the world's largest engineering firms. She is now working on the development of a gold and copper mine. According to the provincial Ministry of Economic Development, immigration will account for 100 per cent of B.C.'s net labour force growth by the end of the decade. "Many immigrants to B.C. possess skills in occupations where there are shortages, but face language barriers, difficulty getting their credentials recognized, lack of Canadian work experience, and challenges navigating an unfamiliar job market," according to printed material supplied by the ministry.

Immigrants no better off now, StatsCan reports

The financial situation of new immigrants showed no improvement after the turn of the millennium although they have more education and skilled qualifications than a decade ago, Statistics Canada reports. The report examines the economic welfare of immigrant families and individuals and assesses their financial situation since 2000, the extent of so-called "chronic" low income, and the impact of changes in education and skill classes on their economic well-being since 1993. In 2002, low-income rates among immigrants during their first full year in Canada were 3.5 times higher than those of Canadian-born citizens. Two years later, the low-income rates were 3.2 times higher. In this study, low income is defined as family income below 50 per cent of median income of the total population, adjusted for family size. Statistics Canada says the low-income rates were higher than at any time during the 1990s, when they were around three times higher than rates for Canadian-born people. "The increase in low income was concentrated among immigrants who had just recently entered the country, that is, they had been here only one or two years," StatsCan says. "This suggests they had more problems adjusting over the short-term during the years since 2000." One likely explanation may have been the slump in the technology sector after 2000, Statistics Canada says. The proportion of recent immigrants in information technology and engineering occupations rose dramatically over the 1990s. In 1993, the immigration-selection system was modified to attract more highly educated newcomers and those in the "skilled" classes. As a result, the proportion of new immigrants aged 15 and older with university degrees rose from 17 per cent in 1992 to 45 per cent in 2004.

Furthermore, the share of newcomers with skilled qualifications increased from 29 per cent to 51 per cent. The rapid increase throughout the 1990s in the share of arriving immigrants who were highly-educated and in the skilled economic class might have been expected to lower the chance of entering low-income, and increase the likelihood of leaving. "This is because the more highly educated and "economic class" immigrants traditionally did better in the labour market," the government agency says. However, government researchers found the large increase in educated newcomers and a policy shift toward favouring skilled-class immigrants had only small impacts on their income levels. "Overall, the large rise in educational attainment of entering immigrants and the shift to the skilled class immigrant had only a very small effect on poverty outcomes as measured by the probability of entry, exit and chronic rates," Statistics Canada said. In addition, the small advantage that the university-educated newcomers had over the high-school educated in the early 1990s had largely disappeared by 2000, as the number of highly educated immigrants rose. Data for this study came from a database that combines the Longitudinal Administrative Database (LAD) and the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB), and allows comparisons of known immigrants and other Canadians. As a result, this study created a "comparison group" consisting of the Canadian-born, plus the immigrants who had been in Canada for more than 10 years. The report compares results for recent immigrants to those of individuals in the comparison group of the same age.

Immigrant Incomes Stagnant

by Bill Kaufmann

Despite being more skilled and educated, immigrants are no better off financially than they were in the early 1990s, says a Statistics Canada report. That means far more immigrants are low-income earners than Canadian-born people - low-income rates were 3.2 times greater for immigrants in 2004, compared to 3.5 times two years earlier. In the 1990s, immigrant low-income rates were never higher than triple Canadian-born residents, states the report, which found 18.5% of immigrants during their first four years in the country were in the low-income bracket from 1992 to 2000. The demand for trades positions has left many more highly educated newcomers without work, said Fariborz Birjandian, executive director of the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society. "They're integrated but not at the level of their education," said Birjandian. "We are losing quite a bit, about $4 to $5 billion a year in not utilizing the skills they bring to Canada." He said the situation undermines the widespread belief immigrants are coddled and given unfair advantages once they arrive. "It costs $40,000 to $50,000 for them to come here and that's a fortune for them," he said. Birjandian added most recent immigrants come from countries culturally distant from Canada, which slows their integration.

Highly skilled Immigrants struggling with Low Incomes

The recent study released by Statistics Canada is a grim reminder about the growing prosperity gap between new immigrants and Canadian-born people. NDP Immigration Critic Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas) called the report a reality check for the government and is urging the Conservatives to review the current immigration policies, especially the selection process of skilled applicants to reflect Canada’s labour needs. “We are breaking a promise to new Canadians when we cannot provide them with secure employment, steady income and a stable quality of life,” said Siksay. “Immigrants are hardworking new Canadians who are trying to provide for their families. We must not turn our backs on them.” Statistics Canada reported that “the economic situation of new immigrants to Canada showed no improvement after the turn of the millennium – despite the fact that they had a much higher level of education and many more were in the skilled immigrant class than a decade earlier.”

Siksay said the report highlights the need to ensure skilled and educated immigrants get quick access to jobs that match their skills. It is also important that foreign credentials are recognized since many new immigrants are entering Canada with professional degrees and specialized skills. The immigrant population of Canada is hard working and care about the issues the NDP stands for such as health care, the environment, and the quality of life for their children. The NDP has made many strides on issues specific to immigrants such as the continued call for the full elimination of landing fees and fees for refugees. They have fought for an apology and compensation for Chinese regarding the head tax and to bring forth reforms in immigration such as the ‘Once in a Lifetime Bill’, allowing Canadians to make a once in a lifetime sponsorship of a relative to Canada.

Dream fades for many Immigrants

by Glenn Kauth

Despite Fort McMurray’s famed labour shortages, immigrants to the region struggle just as much as newcomers elsewhere to earn a decent income, says the co-ordinator of a local settlement agency. “That is something that is Canada-wide,” said the YMCA’s Myra MacKay, reacting to a new Statistics Canada report showing immigrants were more likely to earn low incomes in 2004 than at any time during the 1990s. While Fort McMurray continues its economic boom, MacKay said many of the immigrants she sees aren’t cashing in. “What we’re seeing here in Fort McMurray is the idea that you’re going to have the dream job,” she said, noting she regularly has clients show up in her office who declare, “I just drove in today” from Toronto without securing a job or housing first. Often, MacKay added, it’s the new immigrant who was underemployed in Toronto who comes here to break out of the cycle of working a survival job. However, without Canadian experience and with limited language skills, they’ll still struggle to get the professional job they did back in their home country. Fort McMurray, MacKay said, is “saturated with foreign-trained professionals.” And, of course, once they get here they quickly realize they have to take any job to get by. “They’re becoming the working poor because they have to meet the basic needs of their family. Their hope for the future basically becomes their children.”

That means, MacKay said, that a lot of immigrants trained in professions like engineering and teaching are cleaning houses, working as labourers and retail jobs or driving taxis.MacKay’s comments echo the Statistics Canada study, which puts the probability of new immigrants experiencing poverty at between 34 and 46 per cent, depending on the year they arrived. The study covered the years 1992 to 2004. The higher poverty levels continued throughout those years despite the fact that changes to immigration rules in 1993 meant more and more highly-skilled and well-educated people began coming to Canada. While MacKay, whose agency is often a first point of contact for immigrants arriving in Fort McMurray, estimated about 60 per cent of her clients are underunemployed. Sandra Bessey sees a rosier picture at Keyano College’s English for Skilled Immigrants program. “We have had a very high percentage (of students) that have a type of job with their training,” she said. “In other words, if they were an engineer in Egypt, then they become an engineer in Fort McMurray.” She, too, has students working at places like Wal-Mart and Tim Hortons, but because they’re getting language and communication skills training at the same time, they have an easier transition to their professions. Once they get their English up to speed and their education credentials assessed, many companies will often accept their work at Wal-Mart as Canadian experience, Bessey said. As a result, about 80 per cent of the 30 students she sees a year get a job related to their field within six months. The issue, said MacKay, is preparation. Those immigrants who do their research about job requirements and the cost of living before they come to Fort McMurray, tend to do better. any, though, have unrealistic expectations. “They’ve been led to believe that the job is just waiting for them to walk into,” said MacKay.