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Omar Yaqub

Losing on long-term skilled migration | The Australian - 0 views

www.theaustralian.com.au/...story-e6frgcko-1226034255670

education immigrants

shared by Omar Yaqub on 07 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • CITING a backlog of more than 140,000 applications for skilled migration, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship released amendments to the system of awarding points for applications last year.
  • Most futurists, who spend decades modelling scenarios, agree that 70 per cent of jobs in 2050 don't even exist yet
  • Permanent migration is no longer particularly permanent in a fluid, globalised labour market where international graduates strategically select destinations where they will study, live and work for the medium term before moving on or home, in a pattern referred to increasingly as return or triangular migration.
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  • supply will outstrip demand by 2025 in the local labour market if the present skilled migrant ratio is achieved long term.
Omar Yaqub

In-migration key to Alberta's inflation fight | Troy Media Corporation - 0 views

www.troymedia.com/...ey-to-albertas-inflation-fight

alberta work trends competitiveness

shared by Omar Yaqub on 25 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Labour costs can’t be avoided Why are local labour markets key to containing inflation? When demand picks up in Alberta, imported goods can simply be ramped up as well. The cost of a Toyota didn’t change significantly in ’08, for instance. Conversely, the cost of a haircut, building a high-rise or an up-grader all increased substantially. High labour costs for non-tradable goods and services simply can’t be avoided.
  • We’re not yet at the point where the Alberta labour market is strained because  natural gas is still down and governments have cut back so the added activity can likely be accommodated without causing wages to spike. Unfortunately, that can change quickly. Thankfully, while confederacy doesn’t always lead to an optimal interest rate for western Canada, it does provide a pressure release valve through inter-provincial migration.
  • People relocate for a variety of reasons (family, education, etc.), but, typically, there are three main economic drivers: wages, cost of living and the unemployment rate, which are all linked to one another. For instance, what’s the point of having a higher average wage if it is entirely eaten up by higher living expenses, and wages might be higher in another province, but if they’re not hiring there’s not much point relocating.
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  • There really hasn’t been a whole lot of migration over the past couple years but, going forward, this might change as the above-mentioned factors are starting to turn in Alberta’s favour. Relative to Ontario, over the past year the wage premium has been consistently over 10 per cent, the unemployment rate has been on average 2.5 percentage points lower, and housing affordability indices show that relative affordability has significantly improved in Alberta as well.
  • The average wage in Alberta was four per cent higher than in Ontario in 2006 but is 11 per cent higher now.
  • Idle Americans could help labour shortage
  • Currently idled American trades people will likely fit that bill quite nicely if enough Canadians don’t relocate.
  • Lastly, Alberta is certainly in a better position to accommodate any influx now than it was in the 2006-08 period, given higher rental vacancy rates and lower residential construction activity. Who knows? Maybe, for a brief period anyway, Alberta will actually find that elusive sweet spot between growth and inflation.
Omar Yaqub

http://www.urbanfutures.com/Q4%202010%20Migration.htm - 0 views

www.urbanfutures.com/Q4%202010%20Migration.htm

immigrants trends competitiveness work

shared by Omar Yaqub on 27 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • For  those  of  us  that  follow  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  migration  data,  the  most  recent release from Statistics Canada’s Quarterly Demographic Estimates caught us off guard. While  most  media  did  not  report  on  the  release,  headlines  could  have  run  the  gamut, from “Canada  experiences  its  second  largest  quarter‐over‐quarter  decline  in  net international  migration”  to  “British  Columbia’s  net  international  migration  is  negative for the first time ever”
  • In  British  Columbia  the  rather  significant  divergence  from  recent  trends  was  the consequence of the departure of large numbers of temporary workers and/or students from  the  province,  presumably  returning  home.
  • Alberta  saw  the  number  of  non‐permanent  residents  decline  by  6,725, Saskatchewan by 414, Manitoba by 406, Ontario by 12,603, and Quebec by 5,900. The most  notable  changes  were,  however,  in  the  west.  In  only  two  provinces  (BC  and Alberta)  was  immigration  not  significant  enough  to  balance  the  outflow  of  non‐ permanent  residents,  thus  resulting  in  declines  in  total  net  international  migration  of 727 in BC and 2,092 in Alberta
Omar Yaqub

Interprovincial Migration to and from Alberta - 0 views

osi.alberta.ca/...MigrationtoandfromAlberta.aspx

migration alberta

shared by Omar Yaqub on 01 May 12 - No Cached
  • Net inter-provincial migration accounted for a little more than a quarter (26.6%) of Alberta’s 10.6% population growth between 2001 and 2006. This was the highest among all Canadian provinces. 
  • The largest number of migrants to Alberta originated from British Columbia (72,680), Ontario (49,455) and Saskatchewan (37,430). Yukon Territory and Prince Edward Island each provided fewer than 1,500 persons while only 310 people changed residence from Nunavut to Alberta during the reference period.
  • Over the course of the same period, Alberta also lost some of its population to other provinces. The largest number of out-migrants, moved to British Columbia (62,795), followed Ontario (29,800), and Saskatchewan (16,635). The fewest number of out-migrants, went to the Northwest Territories (1,655), Yukon Territory (750), Prince Edward Island (630), and Nunavut (195).
Omar Yaqub

Australia - The Keys to Australia's Immigration Success - Canada immigration news - 0 views

www.tcscanada.net/...canada-immigration-news.php

work australia immigration canada

shared by Omar Yaqub on 12 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • 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
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  • modify the changes to the way you select economic applicants in the context of improving employment incomes,
  • Canada's immigration policies have increasingly focused on short-term labour market needs at the expense of longer term nation-building.
  • as provinces have been given more control over their immigrant intake, a national framework has fallen by the wayside
  • there is a lack of alignment in the immigration program between skills selection and labour market needs
  • Canadian Construction Association and Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the coalition is calling on the government to invest money in colleges—and to fix the immigration system.
  • by 2012, immigration will account for all labour force growth in Canada, and that two-thirds of the available jobs will require post-secondary education.
  • We need an overhaul to get more skilled trades into Canada quickly," Mr. Charette said. "When you look at Australia, they can get in in three to four days."
  • Success Key to Decision
  • she also said the recent changes brought in by the Conservative government, which give the immigration minister full discretion over how many and what type of immigrants get in, "makes sense." With data that showed economic migrants to Australia were struggling to find work and make a decent wage, the government of the day brought in mandatory language testing and credential assessment for economic migrants before they immigrate.
  • In Canada, however, English-speaking migration has disappeared, she said, adding that no one has yet been able to explain why.
  • Australia also made it easier for international students to apply for permanent status and, by 2005, 52 per cent had applied to stay. Not only do these students pay high costs for their education, they "overwhelmingly qualified for positions," Ms. Hawthorne said.
  • Canada's policies have been focused on increasing temporary workers to meet labour needs, Ms. Hawthorne warned not enough attention has been paid to economic principal applicants in Canada's immigration system.
  • And that's what's keeping people who are the permanent kind," she said. "This is not removing migration as a source of country building...but you're picking people whose immediate work outcome is much more likely to be positive, and they're equally likely to be diverse, and they'll have better longer-term outcomes, as will their children."
Omar Yaqub

Australia prepares to fine tune immigration policy. - Live in Australia Blog - 0 views

www.liveinaustralia.com/blog

australia immigration

shared by Omar Yaqub on 12 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Decisions about who came to Australia would be increasingly left to employers although, conversely, Australia would also be competing for the most highly skilled migrants. Senator Evans said ”In Australia we’ve got this sense of, ‘Well, we’re the lucky country’ and … people will naturally come here, and that’s still true to an extent. But other countries … are increasingly marketing themselves too.”
  • Permanent migration is now dominated by the skill stream, 70 per cent, compared to the family-reunion stream.
  • ”We haven’t planned out our cities very well because we have underestimated growth,”
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  • Australia has failed to do the sophisticated modelling that looks at the long-term impacts and interaction of high migration and environment. ”In the absence of that you get interest groups that dominate the debate, but average Australians have to have a say as well in what they want for the future of Australia.”
Omar Yaqub

http://premier.alberta.ca/PlansInitiatives/economic/RPCES_ShapingABFuture_Report_web2.pdf - 0 views

premier.alberta.ca/...hapingABFuture_Report_web2.pdf

alberta trends work immigrants government

shared by Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11 - No Cached
    • Omar Yaqub
      Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11
       
      work with the federal government to change the immigration system - to help address critical shortages of workers at all skill levelsIt is in the interests of all Canadians that the Alberta economy remains strong. To realize the full potential of the oil sands and broaden the economic base, the province will need people from outside the country as well as migrants from other parts of Canada. The provincial government and industry must collaborate in demonstrating to the federal government the critical need to at least double the caps on the provincial immigrant nominee program. Advocate for immediate changes that allow temporary foreign workers with solid records to apply for permanent resident status while they are still in the country. Continue to work with the federal government to institute longer-term changes to better align the national immigration program with strategies for economic growth, making it more responsive to changing economic conditions and industry's workforce needs.Determine what is getting in the way of swift assessment of foreign trades and professional credentials related to these scarce skills, and remove barriers to full recognition of qualifications that meet Alberta standards. Pre-certify credentials from selected offshore institutions, and create a mechanism that allows all immigrants to determine their credential status before moving here. Expand initiatives such as the Immigrant Access Fund to help immigrants achieve credential recognition.
  • Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11
     
    Give a new alberta water authority the mandate to innovate in water stewardship, and realize the full benefit of our precious water assets Alberta needs all its citizens to develop the mindset and skills to thrive in today's world and drive economic growth - to be resilient, lifelong learners, healthy and productive, eager to achieve and perform, globally connected and informed seeking talent around the globe Like other countries with aging populations, Alberta in 2040 will be competing to attract the brightest and the best talent to the province's workforce to fill critical gaps. As early as 2030, demographers predict that domestic workforce growth in Alberta and Canada will have stalled, although higher birth rates in our Aboriginal population could indicate potential for some domestic population growth. Encouraging seniors who wish to stay in the workforce longer to do so could mitigate (but not solve) the problem. Employers could abolish their mandatory retirement age and other policies that discriminate on the basis of age.Employers in this province are already concerned about shortages of people to fill jobs at all skill levels, well aware that energy booms create huge demands for workers in service sectors as well as in construction and labour-intensive oil sands production. The very specialized skills and knowledge essential to success in broadening the economic base are in short supply in the province now because there have not historically been good opportunities in these areas. One key requirement is more people experienced in founding and growing technologybased businesses. While productivity improvements and the application of innovative business models may slow growth in the labour supply gap or change the mix of skills required over the  next three decades, we still expect to see an increasing  need to attract immigrants to the province to fill key gaps  at all skill levels.The number of immigrants to Alberta fr
Omar Yaqub

Rebuilding Professional Lives: Immigrant Professionals Working in the Ontario Settlemen... - 0 views

www.threesource.ca/...uilding_professional_lives.pdf

immigrants work

shared by Omar Yaqub on 14 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Omar Yaqub on 14 Apr 11
     
    This study looks at how some foreign-born and foreign-trained professionals in Ontario have acquired a new post-immigration profession in the form of settlement work, after not being able to practice their respective pre-immigration professions. The study explores the professionals' pre-immigration education and work history, reasons for migrating to Canada, expectations they had about coming to Canada, choices they made about pursuing professional practice, efforts they put towards that or some alternative goal, and their eventual professional reconstitution as settlement workers.  
Omar Yaqub

Job seekers heading back to Alberta - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2070773

Work alberta

shared by Omar Yaqub on 20 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Job seekers are flooding back to Alberta after a two-year lull, lured by a resurgence in the oil patch and growing hiring demands. Alberta saw a net inflow of 5,300 people from other provinces in the first quarter of 2011 -- its highest rate of interprovincial migration since the first quarter of 2006, according to Statistics Canada preliminary population data reported Wednesday.
  • The province saw steady inflows of workers from other parts of Canada between 1995 and 2009, but saw outflows in 2010 for the first time in 15 years.
  • Alberta’s gain appears to have come from Atlantic Canada and other Prairie provinces. Newfoundland recorded a net outflow of 500 people and Nova Scotia lost 1,000 to interprovincial migration in the first quarter.
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  • Manitoba lost 1,000 to other provinces, while Saskatchewan lost 600 people. It was the booming Prairie province’s first quarterly net outflow of people to other provinces since the third quarter of 2006.
Omar Yaqub

Cities of Migration » Immigrants as Innovators: Boosting Canada's Global Comp... - 0 views

citiesofmigration.ca/...en

immigrants innovation canada

shared by Omar Yaqub on 02 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Omar Yaqub on 02 Feb 11
     
    Immigrants as Innovators: Boosting Canada's Global Competitiveness / Michelle Downie.  Toronto: Conference Board of Canada, 2010. The report is designed to help Canadian government officials and business leaders, as well as cities and communities, recognize the potential value of immigration to innovation performance. The report also provides Canadian leaders with insight into how they can better foster and capitalize on the innovative 1potential of new Canadians.
Omar Yaqub

The awful truth: education won't stop the west getting poorer | Peter Wilby | Comment i... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...tion-jobs-middle-class-decline

education trends competitiveness work

shared by Omar Yaqub on 02 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Skilled jobs will go to the lowest bidder worldwide. A decline in middle class pay and job satisfaction is only just beginning
  • Americans are about to suffer a profound shock. For the past 30 years governments have explained that, while they can no longer protect jobs through traditional forms of state intervention such as subsidies and tariffs, they can expand and reform education to maximise opportunity. If enough people buckle down to acquiring higher-level skills and qualifications, Europeans and Americans will continue to enjoy rising living standards. If they work hard enough, each generation can still do better than its parents. All that is required is to bring schools up to scratch and persuade universities to teach "marketable" skills. That is the thinking behind Michael Gove's policies and those of all his recent predecessors as education secretary.
  • "Knowledge work", supposedly the west's salvation, is now being exported like manual work. A global mass market in unskilled labour is being quickly succeeded by a market in middle-class work, particularly for industries, such as electronics, in which so much hope of employment opportunities and high wages was invested. As supply increases, employers inevitably go to the cheapest source. A chip designer in India costs 10 times less than a US one.
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  • Alan Blinder, a former vice-chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has estimated that a quarter of all American service sector jobs could go overseas.
  • Western neoliberal "flat earthers" (after Thomas Friedman's book) believed jobs would migrate overseas in an orderly fashion. Some skilled work might eventually leave but, they argued, it would make space for new industries, requiring yet higher skills and paying better wages. Only highly educated westerners would be capable of the necessary originality and adaptability. Developing countries would obligingly wait for us to innovate in new areas before trying to compete.
  • But why shouldn't developing countries leapfrog the west? Asia now produces more scientists and engineers than the EU and the US put together. By 2012, on current trends, the Chinese will patent more inventions than any other nation.
  • t suggests neoliberals made a second, perhaps more important error. They assumed "knowledge work" would always entail the personal autonomy, creativity and job satisfaction to which the middle classes were accustomed. They did not understand that, as the industrial revolution allowed manual work to be routinised, so in the electronic revolution the same fate would overtake many professional jobs. Many "knowledge skills" will go the way of craft skills. They are being chopped up, codified and digitised. Every high street once had bank managers who used their discretion and local knowledge to decide which customers should receive loans. Now software does the job. Human judgment is reduced to a minimum, which explains why loan applicants are often denied because of some tiny, long-forgotten overdue payment
  • Digital Taylorism makes jobs easier to export but, crucially, changes the nature of much professional work. Aspirant graduates face the prospect not only of lower wages, smaller pensions and less job security than their parents enjoyed but also of less satisfying careers. True, every profession and company will retain a cadre of thinkers and decision-makers at the top – perhaps 10% or 15% of the total – but the mass of employees, whether or not they hold high qualifications, will perform routine functions for modest wages. Only for those with elite qualifications from elite universities (not all in Europe or America) will education deliver the promised rewards.
  • The effects of the financial squeeze and deficit reduction programme will threaten much more than this government's survival. We shall see, in all probability, a permanent reduction in British living standards that can't be arrested by educational reform. Neoliberalism, already badly dented by the financial meltdown, will be almost entirely discredited. Governments will then need to rethink their attitudes to education, inequality and the state's economic role.
  • Omar Yaqub on 02 Mar 11
     
    Skilled jobs will go to the lowest bidder worldwide. A decline in middle class pay and job satisfaction is only just beginning
Omar Yaqub

Labour already tight early in recovery: panel - 0 views

www.edmontonjournal.com/...story.html

work alberta edmonton trends

shared by Omar Yaqub on 01 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • return of scarce labour and rising construction costs will be the downside of renewed economic growth in Alberta
  • Alberta's 5.7-per-cent unemployment rate in February was tied with Saskatchewan for second-lowest in the country behind Manitoba. Private-sector job growth in the province leads the nation at five per cent year-over-year.
  • But 62 per cent of business leaders also reported that finding workers was a problem, he said.
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  • In a January survey of city businesses by the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, 65 per cent said economic conditions were better than a year ago, said Rick Hersack, the chamber's chief economist.
  • "Businesses are telling us that we're back up into a growth mode and we're concerned it might be going into another boom -the concern mainly being the strain on labour availability," Hersack said
  • In the goods-producing sector, a higher proportion -80 per cent -called labour supply a problem, while 56 per cent expected a shortage in one to three years.
  • In the service sector, 54 per cent said labour availability was a problem and 44 per cent anticipated a shortage
  • "With the ramp-up in the energy sector, that affects essentially all of Alberta," Hersack said. "We also asked our members about their hiring intentions and they'll well exceed the availability of labour force.
  • Kavcic said labour shortages will push wages up.
  • as wages rose, migration of labour from East to West would also rise.
  • "Three areas that clients and business owners remain cautious on are labour force, what's going to happen with commodity prices and the weather," Hogg said.
  • "Businesses all remember what happened in Alberta in 2005 with the difficulty and expense of hiring employees."
  • A report released by the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada Tuesday also warned a labour force of about 130,000 workers will be needed to fill new jobs in the oilpatch and keep pace with retirements.
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