Employers Have Access to More Online Information to Hire Workers Needed to Fill Labour Shortages

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, Mar 07, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Employers can now access more information online about Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) programs to hire permanent and temporary foreign workers, Minister Jason Kenney announced today.

In keeping with the government's focus on the importance of immigration to Canada's economy and growth, the CIC website has been redesigned to include a new section to guide employers to the most suitable program.

"The economy and job growth remain the number one priority of the Government," said Minister Jason Kenney. "Labour shortages are becoming a growing problem in many regions, and this website will help employers access information that will help them hire permanent or temporary foreign workers when no Canadians are able to fill a position."

Employers can learn the steps involved in hiring temporary foreign workers, helping to bring a worker to Canada permanently and hiring international students studying in Canada.

In addition to the enhanced website, the Department is reaching out directly to employers through public consultations.

"Immigration is becoming increasingly important to meeting our labour market needs," said Minister Kenney. "I want to strengthen the partnership with employers to ensure our economic immigration program better meets the needs of our economy."

This new website, a work in progress, builds on the success of other online tools for employers, such as the Employer's Roadmap, available at http://www.credentials.gc.ca/employers/roadmap/index.asp

Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CitImmCanada

Photo of Minister Kenney available at: www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/photos/high-res/index.asp .

Building a stronger Canada: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) strengthens Canada's economic, social and cultural prosperity, helping ensure Canadian safety and security while managing one of the largest and most generous immigration programs in the world.

        
        Contacts:
        Citizenship and Immigration Canada
        Minister's Office
        Ana Curic
        613-954-1064
        
        Citizenship and Immigration Canada
        Communications Branch
        Media Relations
        613-952-1650
        CIC-Media-Relations@cic.gc.ca
        
        
        

SOURCE: Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Kenney points to 'transformational' changes to immigration system

BY TOBI COHEN, POSTMEDIA NEWS

OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is calling for a "transformational change" to Canada's immigration system that emphasizes the need for skilled newcomers who can fill gaps in the country's labour market.

In a speech to business leaders Wednesday at an Economic Club of Canada luncheon, Kenney outlined several pilot projects and strategies the federal government is considering to reduce the backlog of nearly one million applications while making the system more economically focused.

Noting New Zealand "legislated an end" to its backlog in 2003 by creating a "pool" from which all applicants could be selected based on specific criteria as opposed to time spent in the queue, Kenney said Canada is looking at a similar option.

Meanwhile, a new pilot project, he said, is now in place to give provinces the opportunity to "mine the backlog" for newcomers who meet local labour force needs.

Applicants "stuck" in the backlog are also being urged to pull their applications and consider re-applying through the much faster provincial nominee program.

"We are also considering ways to obtain consent from applicants in the backlog to be considered directly by Canadian employers for employment," he said. "With job offers in hand, applicants would see their applications processed on a priority basis."

High level consultations are also taking place with employers across the country, he said, to discuss ways of creating a more "active" immigration system in which employers play a greater role in recruiting people from abroad.

NDP immigration critic Don Davies said he has grave concerns about the government's overall direction and it may be time for a national debate.

"There's two very different visions of immigration in this country. One is the Statue of Liberty: give me your poor, your oppressed, your weak and tired, yearning for freedom. That's what built the U.S. and Canada. It wasn't give me your rich, give me your educated, give me your wealthy investors," he said.

"I think this transformation is moving more toward the latter and I think we need to have a healthy Canadian debate about that because I'm not so sure that's the way to build your economy."

tcohen@postmedia.com

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Changes needed to ensure immigrants and jobs better matched: Kenney

By Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press  | March 07, 2012

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Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney delivers a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - Major changes to the immigration system could include erasing a massive backlog of applications, the minister in charge said Wednesday.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said all options are on the table when it comes to modernizing the process of bringing in would-be immigrants.

"We must have transformational change to move to an immigration program that works for Canada and for newcomers," he said in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada.

He said the changes which will roll out over the course of 2012, will include one to give the provinces the ability to cherry-pick the immigrants they want.

He said Canada also has an eye on New Zealand, where a backlog of immigration applications was legislated away in 2003 and replaced by a pool of prospective applicants.

For now, a pilot program will allow provinces and territories to accept an additional 1,500 immigrants a year if they select them from an existing backlog of skilled worker applications.

"At this point we are looking at all options of dealing with these backlogs and coming up with a faster, more responsive system," Kenney told reporters after the speech.

A parliamentary committee report tabled Tuesday said there is currently a backlog of over a million applications, including as many as 460,000 in the skilled worker category.

Officials told the committee that without changes to the system that backlog won't be eliminated until 2017.

Kenney said the system as it stands is dysfunctional.

"We can’t continue to tell people that they’re going to wait for eight years for a decision on whether they can come to Canada," he said.

He said the government also needs to be more proactive when it comes to communicating with potential applicants about different routes into Canada.

But NDP Immigration critic Don Davies says while it's important to match immigrants with economic needs, there needs to be a more holistic approach to the issue.

"Immigration deals with people, it deals with families and human beings," Davies said.

"It's not just treating people like economic widgets in a machine that we can ruthlessly bring into our country."

And he said the idea of transferring more power to the provinces and in turn to employers, has risks.

"I don't think we want to be delegating the choice of who comes to the country to the private sector," he said.

Kenney said that wouldn't be the point of allowing more matching between jobs and immigrants.

"It's not about privatizing the immigration system, it's about a more active role of recruitment for people so they have jobs when they show up," he said.

"I'd rather have an engineer working as an engineer than a cab driver. That's really where we are trying to go with this."

Immigration backlog could be erased, Kenney suggests

By Laura Payton, CBC News 

Posted: Mar 7, 2012 12:25 PM ET 

The government is considering all options for clearing a backlog of hundreds of thousands of applications from people who want to immigrate to Canada, Jason Kenney said Wednesday.

Kenney, the minister of citizenship and immigration, wouldn't rule out an option used in New Zealand, where the government legislated away the backlog — clearing it by eliminating the files.

Asked how seriously he's looking at that option, Kenney said the department is looking at all options for dealing with the backlog.

"We owe it to newcomers to do that. So we haven’t made any decisions, we’re still consulting, we’re looking at all the options, but I do think that we can’t continue to tell people that they’re going to wait for eight years for a decision on whether they can come to Canada," he said.

Canada's backlog is around 300,000 applications and could take until 2017 to clear.

That's unfair to the applicants and inefficient for employers looking to fill gaps for skilled labour, Kenney said, since after five or six years people's skills may be outdated for what the market requires. Canada's immigration system must function faster and be more responsive to changing needs, he said.

Kenney has already made major changes to the refugee and family reunification systems, in both cases offering compromises on some issues while taking a hard line overall. For example, last fall the department temporarily stopped taking new applications for family reunification but started offering a super visa, valid for 10 years, that allows visitors to stay longer than before.

Although he floated the idea of eliminating old files to kill the backlog, Kenney also offered the option of letting provincial and territorial governments go through current applications and pull out the ones that match their needs with what the applicants seek.

"We are launching a pilot project that will allow provinces and territories to 'mine the backlog' — in other words, to review the applications in the backlog and nominate those applicants they think their economies need now. We are also informing some applicants stuck in the federal skilled workers backlog about possible opportunities under the provincial nominee program," he said.

The provincial nominee program lets the provinces select and recommend immigrants to fill sectors where they're most needed. The federal government then processes the applications.

Using immigration to help the economy

Critics have accused the government of focusing Canada's immigration system too narrowly on economic factors and limiting the opportunities to, for example, bring in aging relatives.

Kenney says statistics show highly skilled people with prearranged jobs do well when they come to Canada, earning an average annual salary of $79,000.

"What we are going to be encouraging prospective immigrants to do more and more is try to get a job lined up before they get to Canada. And that will allow us to help bring them in very quickly in the future. So the doors are always going to be open," he said.

The government has talked in the past about how Canada will have to rely on immigration to supplement an aging workforce.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a January speech in Davos, Switzerland, that Canada is looking at ways to modernize its immigration system.

Pythian Receives Employer Excellence Award from Hire Immigrants Ottawa

OTTAWA, CANADA, Mar 07, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Pythian, a leading provider of data infrastructure services, was honoured today with the 2012 Employer Excellence Award for Retention and Engagement by Hire Immigrants Ottawa (HIO) for its achievement in workplace diversity.

Presented at the HIO Employer Council of Champions Summit-a multidisciplinary council comprising executives from top Ottawa public and private sector companies, business associations and labour groups-the award recognizes Pythian's ability to recruit the top five percent of the world's technology talent to create a diverse workforce of experts speaking more than 20 languages.

"As a culture of experts, we search the world over to recruit the best skilled professionals to work at Pythian," said Paul Vallee, Pythian's Founder and Executive Chairman. "It's an honour to receive this recognition from an organization dedicated to enhancing the abilities of employers like us to access the talents of skilled immigrants in Canada's capital city. Here, we don't care about the last country that you've worked in, we care that you love data."

Warner Chaves of Costa Rica is just one example of Pythian's knack for attracting the world's top talent. After reading about the company in Oracle Magazine, Chaves wrote to Pythian on a whim to see if it would consider him as a candidate; after a stint as a database administrator, he now leads the Microsoft SQL Server team.

"I wasn't considering a move to Canada, but their support persuaded me. I thought of it as an adventure-I would try it for six months. I'm now a permanent Canadian resident," he said. "My colleagues are experts in their field and I'm challenged to produce innovative work. Pythian has not only opened the doors for me to come to Canada, they've also paved the way to help me advance my career."

Employee retention and engagement are top priorities for Heidi Hauver, Pythian's Director of Human Resources. As the architect behind Pythian's successful incentive programs, she says her leadership team has an open-door policy to ensure employee recommendations are given a voice.

"We do monthly check-ins with new hires and the majority say they like it here because they can see that people enjoy working together," she said. "People at Pythian are valued and they know it. They're challenged daily, and they're given the tools and resources to grow personally and professionally. We invest in people because we want them to stay, be engaged and, most importantly, be happy."

About Pythian

Pythian is a global database and application infrastructure services company for Oracle, MySQL and SQL Server. Since 1997, companies have entrusted Pythian to keep their database infrastructures running efficiently and to help them strategically align their IT and business goals. Pythian's unparalleled DBA skills, mature methodologies, best practices and tools enable clients to do more with fewer resources. Pythian's corporate headquarters is in Ottawa, Canada, with offices worldwide. To find out more, visit Pythian online at http://www.pythian.com or view our job listings at http://www.pythian.com/about/careers/job-listings/

        
        Contacts:
        Media Contact:
        Pythian
        Vanessa Simmons
        Director of Marketing
        1-613-897-9444
        simmons@pythian.com
        
        
        

SOURCE: The Pythian Group

        mailto:simmons@pythian.com
        

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