Group items tagged

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have enormous potential as employers of skilled immigrants. At the same time, they can benefit from the skills, experience and innovation that skilled immigrants can bring to their organizations. ALLIES has undertaken research to better understand the programs and policies that can engage and influence the human resource practices of SMEs. Drawing on an examination of programs, policies and organizational efforts aimed at SMEs in ten provinces and 20 cities, and more than 50 interviews with key informants, this research proposes eight practical ideas for cities, governments and service providers.

A tailored strategy for SMEs is needed because SMEs are concentrated in different sectors than their larger counterparts. Recent immigrants are a large part of the workforce, and, overall, they have the skills, education and experience to contribute to Canada’s economy. Current programming does not focus on assisting SMEs to hire new workers. SMEs are motivated by immediate need and financial incentive. They want to mitigate the risk of hiring decisions, particularly when hiring outside of their personal networks. Because SMEs tend not to have formalized structures in place, they can easily and quickly adopt new practices. To be effective, programs for SMEs must be simple, straightforward, and available on demand. Hiring programs for SMEs should be targeted by sector or industry, or for growing businesses. SME programs need strong communications and marketing support to be successful.

Hiring Programs 1. Activity-focused internship – Positions for mid-level professional skilled immigrants will focus on a core business area (e.g. E-commerce, export activities, financial management). 2. One-stop shop for recruiting and HR support services – Gives SMEs a single point of access to a wealth of government and community programs, and provides screened, qualified candidates to employers ready to hire. 3. Online database of screened candidates – Provides on-demand access to qualified candidates in a particular industry or sector. 4. Wage and orientation subsidy – Encourages SMEs to hire a skilled immigrant, and enhances their capacity to provide orientation and training to new workers.

Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren’t open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America’s children. These days, brilliant women become surgeons and investment bankers — and 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores). The figure is from a study by McKinsey & Company, “Closing the Talent Gap.”

Recent scholarship suggests that good teachers, even kindergarten teachers, increase their students’ earnings many years later. Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University found that an excellent teacher (one a standard deviation better than average, or better than 84 percent of teachers) raises each student’s lifetime earnings by $20,000. If there are 20 students in the class, that is an extra $400,000 generated, compared with a teacher who is merely average.

Consider three other countries renowned for their educational performance: Singapore, South Korea and Finland. In each country, teachers are drawn from the top third of their cohort, are hugely respected and are paid well (although that’s less true in Finland). In South Korea and Singapore, teachers on average earn more than lawyers and engineers, the McKinsey study found.

Bill C-35—that makes it illegal for anyone other than an accredited immigration representative to provide advice or otherwise represent a client during an application or proceeding with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).

GOVERNMENT OF SASKATCHEWAN SUPPORTS LABOUR RECRUITMENT MISSION TO IRELAND Premier Brad Wall and Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration Minister Rob Norris will participate in a labour recruitment mission to Ireland in March 2012. The delegation will be comprised of Saskatchewan employers and supported by the Government of Saskatchewan. Immigration staff will support employers who are actively making job offers in Ireland at career fairs in Dublin (March 3-4) and Cork (March 7) where more than 9,000 qualified candidates in fields including trades and construction, engineering and health sciences are expected to attend. "The New Saskatchewan offers jobs, a high quality of life, and a welcoming environment to newcomers," Wall said. "We look forward to telling our story in Ireland. Immigration is helping sustain our economic momentum and enriching our cultural diversity." "There is a tremendous pool of qualified people in Ireland who are actively seeking opportunities abroad," Norris said. "The Irish Economic and Social Research Institute estimates 75,000 Irish are expected to emigrate in 2012 as unemployment in the country continues to rise. This mission will connect Saskatchewan employers with qualified candidates who are seeking to emigrate." Twenty-two employers have committed to participating in the mission with more than 275 vacancies on offer. Candidates who receive an offer of employment will work with immigration officers to apply to the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP). "With a record of economic growth, and one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada, Saskatchewan is a place of opportunity," Norris said. "And we welcome these newcomers to discover the Saskatchewan advantage." -30- For more information, contact: Richelle Bourgoin Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration Regina Phone: 306-787-8153 Email: richelle.bourgoin@gov.sk.ca

All agencies and organizations listed below adhere to the General Guiding Principles for Good Practice in the Assessment of Foreign Credentials and the Recommendation on Criteria and Procedures for the Assessment of Foreign Qualifications adopted under the 1997 Lisbon Recognition Convention. Note that their assessments are not necessarily appropriate or applicable to all situations. If you are planning to study in Canada, consult our Fact Sheet #1 "Information for students educated abroad applying for admission to Canadian universities and colleges" at http://www.cicic.ca/392/admission-to-universities-and-colleges.canada. If you intend to work in a regulated occupation, you will first need to contact the pertinent regulatory body (see our occupational profiles at http://www.cicic.ca/403/occupational-profiles-for-selected-trades-and-professions.canada) for detailed instructions on the procedure to follow (Note: even if you are already licensed to practice a regulated occupation in Canada, employers may request that you provide them with a formal assessment of your academic credentials; if that is the case, please contact one of the services listed below).

Alberta International Qualifications Assessment Service (IQAS) Foreign Qualifications Recognition (FQR) Unit Immigration Division Alberta Employment and Immigration 9th Floor, 108 Street Building 9942 - 108 Street Edmonton, Alberta  T5K 2J5 Canada Tel.: +1 780 427-2655 Toll-free in Alberta: 310-0000 ask for 427-2655 Fax: +1 780 422-9734 Web site: http://employment.alberta.ca/Immigration/4512.html

Alberta’s “semi-skilled” nominee stream for lower-skilled workers – a hodgepodge of narrow, sector-specific pathways – currently makes temporary foreign workers in the food and beverage processing, hotel and lodging, manufacturing, trucking, and foodservice sectors eligible for nomination.[

Employers and workers in these sectors follow a relatively complex application process.[xcii] First, employers specify the number of nominations they intend to make, and outline the job description and requirements, settlement and retention plans, and any sector-specific requirements to the provincial government. This process allocates a specific number of nominations to each employer directly, limiting the maximum number of nominations according to sector.[xciii] Once allocations are made, employers are eligible to select foreign workers who meet the basic education and worker experience requirements for nomination.

In Alberta, lower-skilled foreign workers must be employed with the nominating employer for a minimum period of six months before they are eligible for nomination. Other requirements for education and experience in workers’ home countries vary across sectors. After nominated workers have been approved as nominees by the province, they apply CIC for permanent residency status.

Australia and Canada faced similar challenges in reaping the benefits of newcomers, but experts say today's immigrants to the country Down Under are in faster, employed better and more quickly, and are making more money than those coming into Canada.

within just two years of bringing in major changes in 1999, Australia saw an "immediate surge of outcomes" for immigrants, and the immigration-related economic benefits for the country.

Canada's backlog of nearly 1 million applicants is another challenge, and, today, successful economic migrants to Australia are admitted within three months if they apply off-shore, and three weeks if they are already in Australia

If you have less than four years of work experience, then you must apply as an E.I.T (Engineer in Training). If you are applying as an E.I.T. you must meet two of the five licensure requirements which include Academics, Good Character and Reputation

What are the licensure requirements for internationally educated Engineers? Internationally Educated Engineers must apply to APEGGA for an evaluation of qualifications and, fulfill the following five criteria for licensure:                                                                                      Successfully complete the National Professional Practice Exam (NPPE).            English Language Competency.                                                                                               Good Character and Reputation.                                                                                             Work Experience (including one year of Canadian work experience).                                                                                                                       Academics acceptable to the Board of Examiners. 

it's the sector in which the government has most directly intervened -- health care -- that has maintained the most robust job growth over the past two years, adding 20,000 new jobs in November alone.

it is harder to avoid the notion that a lot of those old jobs simply weren't adding much to the economy

The story runs as follows. Before the financial crash, there were lots of not-so-useful workers holding not-so-useful jobs. Employers didn't so much bother to figure out who they were. Demand was high and revenue was booming, so rooting out the less productive workers would have involved a lot of time and trouble -- plus it would have involved some morale costs with the more productive workers, who don't like being measured and spied on. So firms simply let the problem lie.

vision statemen

1. Unleashing innovation.2. Leading in learning.3. Competing in the global marketplace.4. Making Alberta the best place to live, work and visit.

top strategies:• A Learning Alberta – basing Alberta’s growth on the knowledge industry• Securing Tomorrow’s Prosperity: Sustaining the Alberta Advantage – transition to a knowledge-based and value-added economy• A Place to Grow – linking rural economic development with educational attainment levels• Strengthening Relationships – Working strategically to strengthen partnerships between First Nations, Metis and Aboriginal peoples.• Supporting Immigrants, Immigration to Alberta and Integrating Skilled Immigrants into the Alberta Economy – attraction, development and retention of immigrants into Alberta• Growing our Future – integrating life-sciences strategies into innovation and some value-added sectors

The biggest impact a planning school would have is bringing a good brain trust of urban designers to Edmonton, and getting people to talk about planning in a more serious manner,

Currently, budding urban planners must leave Edmonton in order to continue their education. That’s what happened to urban planner and transit advocate Brian Gould. He left over two years ago to get his masters in urban planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and now lives in Vancouver. The 24-year-old helped establish the Transit Riders Union of Edmonton (TRUE), and wrote on transit issues for a local daily.

“Edmontonians being trained in the city, that’s a benefit right there,” he says, “but there’s also a steady stream of free work coming out of studio projects.”

Canada lags behind in R&D spending and also possibly in patents secured by businesses. But in my research on this topic, I had long regarded Canada as a solid performer, especially compared with Australia. My research was based on an econometric methodology (initially design by Michael Porter and Scott Stern, but refined by myself and Richard Hayes) designed to forecast a country's innovative capacity — that is, not what innovation is taking place but instead what innovation is likely to occur in the future.

Rather than focus on a specific result, such as patent performance, this research derives an index from broader fundamentals. When the experience of many nations is pooled, it becomes clear that certain factors play a robust and persistent role in innovation. These include inputs into R&D (including capital and labor) and, more surprisingly, the public share of education in gross domestic product expenditure (rather than overall education), the level of intellectual property protection (stronger is better), R&D funded by industry (as opposed to government) but performed within universities, and the degree of specialization.

Indeed, compared to other OECD countries, Canada's innovation index puts it at the very top of second tier innovators and at number seven in the world. (The top ten comprises the U.S., Finland, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Iceland, and Norway.) While this does not suggest that Canada should be complacent, it does suggest that the gap emphasized in Canada's Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity report is not as worrying as it might appear. Canada has innovation challenges but they are not at the level faced by Australia.

PROFESSION1 MINIMUM EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS AND ALTERNATIVE CREDENTIALS General Accountant Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or C.P.A., C.A., C.G.A. or C.M.A. Architect Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or state/provincial license2 Computer Systems Analyst Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or PostSecondary Diploma3 or PostSecondary Certificate4, and three years experience Disaster Relief Insurance Claims Adjuster (claims Adjuster employed by an insurance company located in the territory of a Party, or an independent claims adjuster) Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree, and successful completion of training in the appropriate areas of insurance adjustment pertaining to disaster relief claims; or three years experience in claims adjustment and successful completion of training in the appropriate areas of insurance adjustment pertaining to disaster relief claims. Economist Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Engineer Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or state/provincial license Forester Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or state/provincial license Graphic Designer Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or PostSecondary Diploma or PostSecondary Certificate, and three years experience

Hotel Manager Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree in hotel/restaurant management; or PostSecondary Diploma or PostSecondary Certificate in hotel/restaurant management, and three years experience in hotel/restaurant management Industrial Designer Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or PostSecondary Diploma or PostSecondary Certificate, and three years experience Interior Designer Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or PostSecondary Diploma or PostSecondary Certificate, and three years experience Land Surveyor Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or state/provincial/federal license Landscape Architect Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Lawyer (including Notary in the Province of Quebec) LL.B., J.D., LL.L., B.C.L. or Licenciatura Degree (five years); or membership in a state/provincial bar Librarian M.L.S. or B.L.S. (for which another Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree was a prerequisite) Management Consultant Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or equivalent professional experience as established by statement or professional credential attesting to five years experience as a management consultant, or five years experience in a field of specialty related to the consulting agreement Mathematician (including Statistician) Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Range Manager/Range Conservationalist Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree

Research Assistant (working in a post-secondary educational institution) Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Scientific Technician/Technologist5 Possession of (a) theoretical knowledge of any of the following disciplines: agricultural sciences, astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, forestry, geology, geophysics, meteorology or physics; and (b) the ability to solve practical problems in any of those disciplines, or the ability to apply principles of any of those disciplines to basic or applied research Social Worker Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Sylviculturist (including Forestry Specialist) Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Technical Publications Writer Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree; or PostSecondary Diploma or PostSecondary Certificate, and three years experience Urban Planner (including Geographer) Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree Vocational Counsellor Baccalaureate or Licenciatura Degree    

Funding shortages are forcing NAIT to shelve a massive expansion project which administrators say is badly needed to address Alberta's shortage of skilled workers.

She said there are more than 62,000 apprentices in Alberta, with 100 new ones registering every day, yet the province has training spots for only half that number

Andrews said NAIT hopes to eventually increase annual enrolment to 105,000, up from the 72,000 students currently in full-time, part-time and continuing education programs.