加拿大经验是对新移民歧视的外衣和借口

增亲力

Wahaha said:

所谓加拿大经验是对新移民歧视的外衣和借口。政府移民和人力资源部门的无所作为
也是原因之一。说到底还是粥少僧多，人口少，市场小，需求少。它不保护本地人
保护谁？等你的儿女长大成人就业受到保护时，你也会觉得心安理的不做声了。我
知道我们再怎么说也没用，只有积极参政，用选票和权位来鞭策和驱赶政客们，并
参与法律的制定才能解决问题。但这需要时间和大家的共同努力，让我们大家每一
个人从我做起把！

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实事求是 said:

Can New Immigrants Wait?

Dear 增亲力:

Your theory sounds good, but can new immigrants wait for your suggestions to become a reality?

By the way, Dr. Tang did not say the on the job training means that new immigrants should get jobs without pay, in fact I personally heard from quite a few people that he had helped many new immigrants to obtain professional jobs. Also, it seemed that you are only familiar with the IT sector, but there are many new immigrants who are in other sectors, and "Canadian Experience" does mean "Canadian Experience", without that you can definitely not perform to the expection of your employer. No matter one calls it "Canadian Experience", or in another way, let say "relevant experience", it is NOT up to you to admit it or not, and it is NOT up to the government to accept it or refuse it either, it is deeply in the mind of the employers!!! You can go against the employers, you can criticize the government or the employers, but will that do any good to the new immigrants? And more importantly, can you suggest any good solutions to help the new immigrants?

Changing the immigration regulations will not help those who have been here. Long term solutions may be good but 远水解不了近渴. Everyone wants the government to create more jobs. But we are taking about urgently needed solutions for the new immigrants who are also part of our society. So we need some realistic, practical and quick solutions. I think what Dr. Tang said makes sense - If the government pays for a portion of the new immigrant's salary, the employers may be more willing to hire the person. There have been some similar programs, for example, the NSERC Industrial Research Fellowship Program which pays a portion of a new PhD graduate's salary when the person is hired by industry. Many participants attested that without such a program they would not have been hired even though they are educated in Canada, because they were also lacking the "real-world" experience that the industrial employers really look for.

I also fully agree with Dr. Tong - Without employers' participation, government programs will NOT go too far or be successful.

Remember, admit it or not, experience does count. Even though the employers don't say "Canadian Experience", they will still require "Relevant Experience", just to be politically correct!

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增亲力 said

New immigrants can not wait

RE: Dear 实事求是

However, new immigrants should understand the current JOB MARKET in his/her career sector, which is mainly controlled by the number of job seekers and the number of job opportunities.

(1) New Immigrant can not wait. However, please understand, every job seeker wants to get immediately the job that he/she is seeking, no matter what you are, a new immigrant, an old immigrant or a local citizen.

There are rules for the job market and we can not use some solutions to break the rules if only a few job seekers can get benefit from breaking the rule. If the correct rule is broken, all of us will pay for it. 远水解不了近渴, so do things like:
- Breaking the line-up rules for getting into a bus ?
- Inserting yourself at the beginning of the line to get a piece of cake ?
- Making farms from the lake (which was happened in China) ?
One may get benefit from doing these, but did he/she consider the results? We Chinese are smart, however sometimes we do things like artist (almost no rules for artist), but here we need more engineering thought (thinking about the whole and obeying the correct rules).

I do not agree with the idea that new immigrants need go to a company to work for several to 6 months to get the so-called Canadian Experience (with no pay or little pay or the government will pay). It will kill job opportunities - reduce the number of job opportunities in the job market. I had explained this in details. Did you hear that some accounting or banking offices often use co-op program to keep having 2 to 3 new immigrants (bookkeepers) to work for them with no pay? If no one do the co-op, then the accounting/banking office should hire more people. Even worse, I heard that some new immigrants pay money through training schools to employers, to work for the employers with no pay in order to get Canadian Experiences (they work and they pay the employer!).

It is understandable that employers use the words "Canadian Experience" to tell that they can not give you the job. For the employers, if they have more choice, they will choose the one they like and the one who can do the job very well. It is on market - sell and buy, right? Actually, the Canadian Experience Requirement protects the job seekers who had worked in Canada and who had paid income tax. It is not unfair, right? They should be protected. Late on, you, the new immigrant, will also be protected.

If the job market is good, then no one will mention the Canadian Experience Requirement. For example, between 1997-2000, new immigrants in the IT sector would get a job in 3 month after they arrived in Canada. At that time, no one said that new immigrants in IT sector lacked Canadian Experience. Therefore, is Canadian Experience a real problem for new immigrants to work at companies in Canada? No, definitely not - for people in technical sectors like IT and Engineering. However, we should understand, as a new immigrant, we talk, communicate and even eat differently. For example, in a company where there are two new immigrants from China, they may speak Chinese at team lunch if they are together, which means the communication was closed to the other English speakers for a while.

Even though, we should prevent people from saying "Lack Canadian Experience" for new immigrants. Yes, people may find some other substitutions - sometimes employers need find a reason to tell why someone was not hired, and new immigrants should understand the situation. The worlds, "Lack Canadian Experience" may hide the real reason for that new immigrants are hard to get a professional job - the real reason is in the job-market. It also may mislead new immigrants and government to give bad solutions, may help employer to prevent new immigrants from working for them, and may help employer to pay new immigrants at half price. "Lack Canada Experience" may help people to say "experience outside Canada" is not experience for working in Canada. As it is said, if a non-existing thing was said over thousands times, then it is the truth.

We do need the help from people like Dr. Tong, who takes care of new immigrants and who takes time to help new immigrants. However, I do not agree with the solution about Getting Canadian Experience. The solution is not in a natural way. If someone is lucky enough to get the help from Dr. Tang and then get a job, then other job seekers who can get the job naturally will lose the opportunity to get the job. When Dr Tong put one person on a bus seat, another person who can take the seat naturally should stand and wait. Is it fair? No. The best and natural way to help new immigrants to get a job is the solution for the job market, not the solution for several or hundreds lucky guys. Any way, How many new immigrants come to Toronto each year? And how many new immigrants Dr. Tang can help? Why not go to buy 6/49?

(2) Changing immigration rules would be a faster, natural and efficient way to help professionals already in Canada

The reason is very simple: it will reduce the number of job seekers in the job market in specific career sectors where there are too many job seekers.

To help new immigrants to get job in a career sector (no matter which sector it is, IT, financial or Engineering), the best way and natural way is to reduce the number of job seekers and to increase the number of job opportunities. However, the Canadian Immigration increases the number of job seekers greatly in IT, Finance and Engineering sectors (most new immigrants are in these areas due to the Immigration rules). So, to help new/old immigrants who has already been in Canada in a specific career sector to get a job, the easiest, best and natural way is to prevent the Canadian Immigrations from getting people in Canada in the career sector.

Did you hear, now a day, for a posted IT, Finance or Engineering position, an employer could get thousands of resumes in Toronto area? Let's use IT sector as example. Suppose, in city A, each year 800 IT positions can be created, and in 2004 there have already been 1700 IT job seekers (including 1000 new immigrants who came before 2004, 500 new or recent graduates, and 200 IT professionals who lost job in 2004 or before 2004). If no new IT immigrants come to city A in 2004, then in 2005 there will be approximately (1500-800)+500 = 1200 IT job seekers. We can expect that about 200 new IT immigrants can get a job in 2004 (20%), and that in 2005 there will be about 800 new IT immigrant job seekers and we can expect about 400 of them will get a job (50%).

However, if there are 500 new IT immigrants coming to city A in 2004, then there will be 1500 new IT immigrant job seekers in 2004 and only about 10% of them can get an IT job. And, in 2005, 500 new IT immigrants coming, totally 1500-200+500=1800 new IT immigrant job seekers and things become worse and worse. The bad thing is, due to the competition, the salary of new immigrants becomes lower and lower. This is just a rough estimation. We can give a more accurate math simulation about how the life of immigrants who have been in Canada is affected by current immigration rules. We need protect ourself.

I am not against immigration. What I mean is that we need reasonable Immigration rules to select the right kind of people Canada really need. Actually, right now, Canada does not really need highly educated professionals for whom there is no job market. Reasonable immigration rules will help Canada to develop a healthy society and the government would not pay extra money to take care the problems caused by immigration. And the selection rules should be changed frequently based on the job market.

There are also some other natural ways to help new immigrants to get job, e.g., the government can create policies for
- Encouraging new comers to live in cities other then the three main cities for immigrants
- Encouraging people to do small business
- Encouraging people to change career to the sectors for which there are less job seekers
- Giving policy to keep job opportunities in Canada (not move out from Canada).