International workers drawn to Canada

Derek Sankey  Dec 28, 2011 – 5:36 PM ET

CALGARY – Workers from all over the world are increasingly targeting Canada to find jobs in the wake of sluggish economies elsewhere, according to some recruiters who report noticing a recent spike in the number of workers coming to Canada from struggling countries with high unemployment rates.

“We started noticing it in 2010 [and] what was really noticeable was the number of people coming from Ireland,” says Sandra Miles, president of Vancouver-based Miles Employment Group. “I have never seen so many people from other parts of the world – from all over.”

Since January, an “unprecedented” 6,500 applicants from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand have applied to Ms. Miles.
Mohammad Sarker targeted Canada as a place to live and work because the Bangladeshi, who is trained in mechanical engineering with a master’s degree in materials engineering, saw good job opportunities in the energy sector.

“Canada is the most stable compared to the U.S. and some other countries,” says Mr. Sarker, an intermediate transmission line engineer with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.

“This is the first world, so that’s the reason [for immigrating] because life is very secure here and you can get a better job with better opportunities,” says Mr. Sarker, who immigrated to Calgary in May 2009.

Part of the reason for the rise in the number of international workers coming to Canada is recent changes to the working holiday visa program, which makes it easier for people from Commonwealth countries to come and work in Canada while travelling or studying.

The B.C. provincial government will take steps to increase the number of international students allowed to study in the province by 50% in the next four years as countries and provinces compete for a larger pool of foreign students and foreigntrained, skilled workers.

Even Americans, who face higher unemployment levels than Canadians, are contacting agencies in Canada in the hope of finding a job. Based on last year’s trend, Ms. Miles expects numbers to increase at the beginning of the year. “There is generally a spike from January to March,” she says.

Amid global uncertainty about the eurozone and a continued sluggish U.S. economy, Canada is emerging as a bright spot for employment prospects – at least for now. A protracted downward trend elsewhere would inevitably affect Canada, but it has fared the best when measured against many developed nations.

For highly skilled, global workers such as Mr. Sarker, it makes sense to choose Canada over other countries.

Mr. Sarker said he knew it wasn’t going to be a free ride. After arriving, he took a job working at a grocery store to pay his family’s bills before finding a higher-paying job that allowed him to save money while getting his engineering credentials recognized.

He contacted the International Qualification Assessment Service in Alberta and did some education upgrading to get equivalent certification in Canada.

He later applied to the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta for professional accreditation and was hired by SNC-Lavalin in June.

Shahid Ahmad also saw the value of Canada’s “booming” economy. He trained as an electronics engineer in his native Pakistan, and immigrated to Canada in 2004 when he landed in Mississauga, Ont., but had to go back to Pakistan for family reasons. In 2008, he moved to Calgary from Pakistan because of the city’s vibrant job market and economy.

“I saw a number of other countries offering immigration, but Canada is one of the safest countries in the world,” says Mr. Ahmad, who also works for SNC-Lavalin. “I know Calgary is one of the most booming cities in the world due to this oil exploration and the immense resources Alberta has.”

He found it difficult to acclimatize at first, but eventually overcame the barriers of lack of Canadian experience, a network or a full understanding of cultural nuances.

Calgary Oil Transforms Canada to Energy Superpower of Immigrants

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Alberta Premier Alison Redford says oil is opening Canada's fastest-growing province to the world for the first time.

The population of Canada's main oil-producing region has soared by 37 percent to about 3.7 million in the past decade as companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Statoil ASA attracted workers from China, Venezuela and the Philippines to develop the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East.

"Most people around the world believe that it has been a fairly parochial jurisdiction," Redford, 46, said during an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. "We are now going through a generational change in politics and in business. We have an ability to embrace the world in a way that we've never done."

Alberta, one of only two land-locked Canadian provinces, is turning a farming and cowboy image on its head as the booming energy sector attracts global attention to its oil sands and welcomes newcomers to fill jobs.

The immigrant population of Calgary is growing faster than any Canadian city as oil companies fill as many as 100,000 jobs over the next eight years, according to a study by Deloitte and Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada.

"I came here because it's easy to get a job," said Hong Wei Pei, a 36-year-old accounting clerk from China who arrived in Calgary with her husband and two children in 2009. "Most people here are immigrants and the locals are friendly and welcoming. If you work hard you'll be successful."

Alberta has led economic growth in Canada in recent years and per-capita gross domestic product, at C$70,824 ($69,462) last year, is 75 percent higher than Quebec's and tops among Canadian provinces.

Changing Face

The investment and immigration has changed the face of the province. Albertans elected Canada's first Muslim mayor to lead Calgary, the province's largest city, and in Redford has its first female premier, one of only three in Canada. That speaks to the opportunities for immigrants and minorities in the province, says Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, whose parents emigrated from Tanzania.

"There are very few places in the world where a kid from a minority ethnic community, a minority faith community, could be elected your mayor without anyone blinking an eye," said Nenshi, in a speech on Oct. 26. "It's up to us to model to the rest of the world a place where multiculturalism works."

Visible minorities make up about a quarter of the population of Calgary, which was ranked the world's fifth-most livable city by The Economist magazine this year.

Young Region

One reason why Alberta has been successful at integrating immigrants is because the region is so young, says David Liepert, a Calgary-based anesthesiologist who adopted the Islamic religion 16 years ago. Alberta, named after Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, became a province in 1905 with a population of about 100,000.

"Alberta is still building a society and that makes it open," said Liepert, 50. "It still has aspects of the frontier culture. It doesn't matter what your background is."

The original European settlers, who displaced nomadic native tribes including the Blackfoot and Sarcee nations, had to work together and cooperate in order to manage their farming businesses. They endured a harsh climate where winter temperatures often drop to -40 degrees Celsius (-40 Fahrenheit), said Murray Edwards, a Calgary-based billionaire and vice chairman of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., an oil sands producer.

Prairie Entrepreneurs

"There's a spirit here that I call 'prairie entrepreneurialism,'" said Edwards, in an interview. "The original homesteaders were fiercely independent, but open to new ideas based on their merits -- not where they come from. That value set has survived to this day."

Agriculture, including cattle farming, wheat and barley, was the foundation of the local economy a century ago and now accounts for only about 15 percent of the provincial economic output. Though Calgary still holds an annual cowboy fair, known as the Stampede, the main economic driver is now tied to the oil and natural gas sector, which generates about a third of government revenue and employs one in six workers, according to government statistics.

The price of oil, now hovering at $100 a barrel, has helped make the province Canada's third-largest economy, just behind Quebec, which has twice the population.

"Alberta has got a lot going for it," said Craig Alexander, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, the country's second largest. "It's very pro-business and continues to attract immigrants."

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