Posted on 11/12/2012 12:10:06 AM PST by Alaska Wolf
Canada looks to lure energy workers from the U.S.
EDMONTON, Canada — With a daughter to feed, no job and $200 in the bank, Detroit pipe fitter Scott Zarembski boarded a plane on a one-way ticket to this industrial capital city.
He'd heard there was work in western Canada. Turns out he'd heard right. Within days he was wearing a hard hat at a Shell oil refinery 15 miles away in Fort Saskatchewan. Within six months he had earned almost $50,000. That was 2009. And he's still there.
"If you want to work, you can work," said Zarembski, 45. "And it's just getting started."
U.S. workers, Canada wants you.
Here in the western province of Alberta, energy companies are racing to tap the region's vast deposits of oil sands. Canada is looking to double production by the end of the decade. To do so it will have to lure more workers — tens of thousands of them — to this cold and sparsely populated place. The weak U.S. recovery is giving them a big assist.
Canadian employers are swarming U.S. job fairs, advertising on radio and YouTube and using headhunters to lure out-of-work Americans north. California, with its 10.2% unemployment rate, has become a prime target. Canadian recruiters are headed to a job fair in the Coachella Valley next month to woo construction workers idled by the housing meltdown.
The Great White North might seem a tough sell with winter coming on. But the Canadians have honed their sales pitch: free universal healthcare, good pay, quality schools, retention bonuses and steady work.
"California has a lot of workers and we hope they come up," said Mike Wo, executive director of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp.
The U.S. isn't the only place Canada is looking for labor. In Alberta, which is expecting a shortage of 114,000 skilled workers by 2021, provincial officials have been courting English-speaking tradespeople from Ireland, Scotland and other European nations. Immigrants from the Philippines, India and Africa have found work in services. But some employers prefer Americans because they adapt quickly, come from a similar culture and can visit their homes more easily.
Since 2010, about 35,000 U.S. workers a year have been issued work permits, according to Canadian immigration statistics. That's up 13% from earlier in the decade. And that figure is expected to grow as provinces continue to loosen requirements for temporary foreign workers.
Rudolf Kischer, a Vancouver-based immigration attorney, said his firm can hardly keep up with the processing of work permits for employers hiring U.S. help.
"We're the busiest we've ever been," he said.
Many of those workers are heading to where the labor market is hottest: Edmonton.
One of the fastest growing cities in Canada, this capital city owes its prosperity to the oil sands. Lying a few hours to the north, the sands are a mixture of sand, clay, water and bitumen — a heavy, black, viscous petroleum — that must be mined and processed to extract the oil. Alberta's massive deposits, which rival the conventional crude oil reserves of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, are being developed at breakneck speed to meet the growing global demand for energy.
Edmonton has become a staging ground for oil companies that include Canada's Suncor Energy Inc., Shell Canada Ltd. and Chevron Canada Ltd. The energy sector has in turn boosted industries such as manufacturing, home building and retailing.
With a population of about 812,000, Edmonton looks a lot like many American cities. There are large strip malls anchored by U.S. retailers such as Costco and Home Depot, and ubiquitous coffee shops — except here Tim Horton's doughnut shops outnumber Starbucks 3 to 1.
The biggest difference: The unemployment rate here is 4.5%, and "We're Hiring" signs are posted in almost every window.
Moving to a city where the economy is firing on all cylinders was a sharp turn from struggling Motor City, Zarembski said.
Fat paychecks allowed him to ditch his battered Pontiac Grand Am for a late-model Dodge pickup truck. He has vacationed in the Dominican Republic and taken his 14-year-old daughter to Universal Studios in Florida. He's planning to buy a house in Edmonton's western suburbs soon.
With so much work available, Zarembski said, trade workers can afford to pick and choose. Jobs near Fort McMurray, a remote town six hours north, are the best-paid; a welder can make up $37 an hour. (At present Canadian and U.S. dollars are almost equivalent in value.) But laborers must stay in barracks-style camps, which energy companies have upgraded to woo them. The best ones offer private rooms with flat-screen TVs, gyms, prime dining and wireless Internet access
Thank you for all the information and your time.
Interesting...thanks to both of you.
Wait....CITIZENS can own handguns???
What is it? Eleven months in Canada to meet residency requirement? And still file in U.S.?
They can own them, but as far as I know they aren't allowed to carry them except to and from a shooting range.
That sounds about as restrictive as CA laws...unless you’re REALLY fortunate and live in a county with a decent sheriff.
We had to lock the UNLOADED gun in a case. Stored in the trunk of your car. The ammo went in another case...in a different part of the car.
Totally ridiculous...We had an SUV and were told that even with the stuff stored in the far back of the SUV, separated, if we got stopped by a cop with an attitude...we could be in heap big trouble.
In California, USA?
If you want to research this look up IRS form 2555-EZ, the “Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. “ There are several ways to determine residency. Time/days worked in Canada - USA is only one element. The online manual is written in less than clear legalize - it is a government doc from the IRS. You must be physically present in a foreign country for 330 days, or a true resident. A partial year is prorated.
We have dual citizenship from living in Canada in the ‘80s and becoming Canadians, though my kids were also born in Canada. You cannot lose your US unless you renounce it. My kids are also dual as they were registered as US citizens at birth.
We sort of voted in 2008 and then voted with our feet in 2009. You live with the paper work if you live outside the States.
By the way, we are having an early winter in Alberta, it has been at or about freezing for almost a month with snow on the ground since mid October.
Yep, when we transported them.
You can’t own a hand gun unless you are a member of a shooting club....or a street gang.
Canadian companies are advertising in all the military retiree magazines looking to hire US Military Veterans for various jobs...not just petroleum. Seems that US military veterans get an easier clearance to work in Canada...Canada seems to like our Military vets better than the Obama-Noids do
If Canada was really smart they would setup manufacturing plants right near the border. Then they could siphon off some of the millions of out of work Americans. People could rent or buy homes near the border on the American side and commute to work.
Canada gets a whole bunch of workers who won’t be using their Healthcare system and Obama can keep killing business in America for 4 more years but claim he created millions of jobs by chasing our workers out of the country.
Sounds like a plan!
It would work...but the Free Trade Communist Globalists would fight that tooth and nail. The Free Traders want the jobs shipped out of Canada, too. It would not surprise me, also, that NAFTA bans Canada putting new manufacturing so close to US border....NAFTA already forces Canada to send 2/3d of all oil to the US (which prevents that oil from being sold on the open market)
NAFTA killed the Maquiladoras in Mexico along the US border...before NAFTA we had many US factories and plants on the Mexican side...hiring Americans at good wages to run them
Oh, yes, your plan would work....but too many in power will kill such an idea
To be honest, I won’t be surprised to see more Americans coming for job to Canada.
Right now, Michigan looks like a third world hellhole from Ontario, Canada.
About same like one can see Mexico down south.
If you ask one in Windsor, Ontario what is coming on their mind if you say “United States” they aren’t thinking Hollywood, liberty etc, but poverty, crime, ignorance etc.
Free? No significant taxes to pay for it?
We'll all be drinkin' free bubble-up,
An' eatin' that rainbow stew.
I have a 21’ older Prowler travel trailer, a 2002 Silverado dually, tools and enough stockpiled freez dried foods to last me a year, and I am about to be seasonally laid off from my current job in Wasilla, Alask.
Return to work date is usually not until April, I can live in a trailer during an Alaskan winter, did it for a couple of years. Being a maintenance supervisor with welding skills may give me an edge but I will be 56 in a couple of weeks, I have made plans to head down to Australia this spring, but I think I may not get an American passport out because of back child support monies I owe, they have bluntly said they can obstruct me getting a passport.
But not if I work in Canada and I get Canadian citizen ship and a Canadian passport, this is very good news to hear.
Canada has jobs, but hey... we have welfare, obamaphones and a communist black man in the White House.
Eat your heart out, Canada.
Great that some people can find work but I would never live somewhere like Canada where the citizens don’t have the freedoms we do. Obama wants to turn America into Canada which I don’t want - why move to a communist country?
I’d work at McDonald’s before I’d accept a job with socialist universal healthcare paid for by the taxpayers.
Thanks for the info. though I’m not seeing a move to Canada in my future. If I move very far again it will be away from snow and cold.
The lads that head to the oil sands could have lifetime work it sounds like.
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