I am a newcomer to Canada & a skilled professional with more than 10 years of experience in credit & engineering. Under Canada’s Federal Skilled Workers Express Entry program, I got a high comprehensive ranking score (CRS) because my skills, education and experience were in high demand in Canada. I already had my educational & professional credentials recognized for Canadian Equivalency by the WES.
But once I landed here, even after various hard tries and hundreds of job applications, I could not find a decent job, appropriate to my education and experience. The P.Eng. process for engineering was very unfair and cumbersome. Even with credit industry certifications, I realize that the jobs in banks were given based on personal connections, labelled as ‘Reference’. But somehow it looked strikingly similar to what we called ‘nepotism’ back home. There was absolutely no avenue I could explore which would value me based on my merit and skill sets.
Under much distress and duress, I worked multiple survival jobs, spanning from retail customer service to food delivery to construction, just to put food on my table. The unaffordable housing and high grocery prices meant an unending struggle for me, jumping from one shift to another, seven days a week. My good linguistic and communication skills did not help me, neither did my education, nor did my extensive work experience. What was a high CRS score for IRCC before coming to Canada was a big liability, which weighed me down in the Canadian Job Market.
To break out of the cycle, I planned to get into Skilled Trades. I worked hundreds of hours with a construction company below the minimum wage, in the hope that they might help me start my Apprenticeship for the trade I wanted to get into. But it just became a cycle of economic abuse and fraud as not only could I not start my apprenticeship, but I also wasn’t even paid my promised wages, worth thousands of dollars, for which I toiled in unsafe working conditions.
I keep on wondering what the system gains by bringing in highly skilled immigrants and then muzzling them down into the unskilled labour market. How does the economy gain by saturating the already overflowing unskilled sector, while we face a high number of vacancies in skilled jobs? It is amusing how Canada brings in Engineers, teachers and medical professionals from around the world, to man its retail counters and run its fast-food chains. The scale with which newcomers are being de-skilled & exploited for free/cheap labour in the guise of Canadian Experience is simply beyond comprehension. At the end, it helps nobody, neither the economy, nor the New Canadians, nor the old Canadians.
J Singh