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Canada - an architect's dream?
"Confronting a shortage of home-grown architects, the Canadian government is making it easier for foreign-trained designers to work there."
"Confronting a shortage of home-grown architects, the Canadian government is making it easier for foreign-trained designers to work there."
For all you folk out there looking for work the Canadian government apparently thinks architects are the bee's knees, and not only that, firms are hiring and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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The article is a complete nonsense. Literally. Every topic of it. (I know what I'm talking about; the author is either an incompetent journalist or a paid liar. Sorry.)
"Dave Edwards, a principal of DeLint + Edwards Architects, in Regina, Saskatchewan, says that he has been looking to hire architects with “four or five years’ experience”—jobs, he notes, that pay $60,000 to start—but that “finding people has been a struggle.”"
Hmm, I'm gonna go ahead and venture out that 60,000 with 4-5 years of experience is the reason why.
Can any one verify this. Any of our Canadianites?
i have no idea.
i do know my friends are all employed in canada and some have started offices doing cool things (in Winnipeg for goodness sake!) and have been hiring staff the last few years running as they keep on growing...
but to me the actually cool thing about the article is that the govt has officially declared that the profession of architect is a desirable one for an immigrant to have. i've moved country a few times and that is not so normal. it has real consequences.
unless the reporting is not true on that point too, archialternative? i did not fact check but am interested to hear if it is completely fabricated.
ah... note the two places that actually indicated they were having difficulty finding people. edmonton and regina are... not places that most would voluntarily opt for. that said, a job is a job and some of these places might actually be hungry for skilled labor. depends on how you feel about uprooting yourself and what you need in the place you land.
more generally for the "desirable" cities in canada, I'd say that the picture it paints is overly rosy. vancouver firms shed A LOT of people during the downturn. our firm's staff numbers are still about 55-60% of what they were before the shit hit the fan. I don't have any hard figures, but with the people set afloat plus the waves of graduates that keep coming, I have difficulty believing there is a shortage out there currently. though as rough as it was, vancouver never hit the grimness I've read about in some u.s. cities, and my impression is that most of the other canadian cities have faired about the same and are in a similar condition currently (with some exceptions like halifax, which have been a difficult place for professional practice for a long time). I have to think that bing was referring to a more general long-term trend...
head north and maybe find a job, I guess -- the further north you go, the more likely your chances. it's like the fate of most academics looking for work -- at best you'll be choosing which geographical compromise you can live with...
that makes sense subtect. i have been wondering for awhile what the real scoop is in canada. my friends there are mostly in the prairies or otherwise kind of oddly exceptional and so all employed. everyone seems to be doing so well there, meanwhile most of my friends in usa and europe are really struggling. the contrast is amazing.
its hard here in japan too, btw. not bad enough to move to edmonton or regina yet. but still, not so good to be an architect.
that said, i can't imagine the japanese govt worrying any time soon about how to attract architectural talent to its shores with new immigration policy. so i still think its cool ;-) yay for canada.
I moved to Toronto 1 year ago and embarked on an exhaustive job search with at least 20 interviews. With 3 years of experience in a NYC office, Leed certification and a degree from arguably the best architecture school in the states, no firms in Toronto would hire me. I was forced to take a job in a suburb with a 4 hour daily bus commute at half the salary I was making in New York. A project manager at my firm in New York, I started as an intern in Canada. While employed, for the next 8 months I continued the desperate job search to no avail.
The City of Toronto is flooded with recent grads from U of T and Ryerson and there is no dearth of architects. In Canada, you are considered an intern until you have your license and a Masters degree. In New York experience is king. On my first interview back in NYC I was hired at a great firm with a competitive salary.
I interviewed with a wide range of firms in Toronto and, shockingly, none had any experience hiring foreigners. The process of obtaining a work permit was a complete mystery and firms were ultimately too scared or too complacent to attempt the process. I consulted a lawyer who demanded hundreds of dollars and threatened deportation for advice he gave me that I found on the Canadian government website. It turns out that, with the right documentation (degree, letter, etc.) and $200 the process is very simple and quick. No lawyer necessary. Under the NAFTA Agreement of 1993, Architects and other professionals are exempt from the requirement to obtain a Labor Market Opinion. A work permit even gets you access to free healthcare.
Canada was not immune to the recession. In Toronto, the building boom of a few years back littered the downtown with huge residential towers that the City is now desperate to fill and design work is not abundant. The Canadian government may be extending open arms to foreign architects but firms in big cities like Toronto are clinging to scraps of work and naturally, will help a Canadian before a foreigner.
Canada definitely was hit with the recession, not nearly as bad in the US and some places were far worse than others.
Vancouver had a huge hit and has still not recovered. Many people I know were layed-off or let go in past years in this area. Toronto, and Montreal have also always being more difficult to gain entry into just because of demand to live in those cities.
Edmonton and Regina are both smaller cities without an architecture school, so they have no one feeding directly into the city after graduation. They rely on students coming back to the city which is always tricky as there has to be a real desire to move back to the place you may have grown up in. These cities have also had somewhat recent booms (particularily Regina) with a potash industry - but this may not last. That being said I believe there are still many opportunities as it is quite difficult for the Province of Saskatchewan to retain or get people to move back there.
Winnipeg is an entirely different situation with many young upstart firms right now who are all doing fairly well.
Canada loves statistics, it was set up really as it is now at a time when everything could be quantified, and I think they've always been insecure as a population.
The reality is that for ages with punishing statistics for the real nature of practice there, the system for foreigners was crap and they've come under a lot of pressure lately to do something about it, hence the big injection of money-finally, they got their own exam 2 years ago, though I know there was one before...Registration of foreigners in all professions is a hot potato here, there's a lot of croneyism or just self protection and I don't think any Canadian wants to give a job to an American - not a good job anyway! They still have to justify
not employing a Canadian to immigration.
I had an interview once where I moaned on a bit, stating the supposed shortage which existed even 10 years ago - I was told that keeping foreigners out is how they maintain their shortage! Nothing for nothing, they will always get the better part of the deal, and their nationalism which is really just a kind of heroism has taken rather a nasty turn of late. They think nothing of luring immigrants to the most poorly serviced places without much thought for how they will survive. Transit is a joke and many places are exceedingly backward to put it mildly, thank God for the internet and buyer beware.
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