How would you feel if you were a trained lawyer or physician in your country and now you work as a dog walker, a taxi driver or a janitor? Not good. You might say who would want to do that? It turns out that a lot of immigrants are settling for that. They come with high hopes in light of the fact that their qualifications are looked upon and assessed favorably in the immigration officials’ assessment as to whether a person would be accepted into Canada or the USA.
However upon arrival at their destination and they whip up an up to date resume listing their credentials, the new immigrant finds the “how sad too bad” reaction when told that those qualifications are not recognized in Canada or the USA.
Spirits are crushed as families decide what to do next, some professionals many not know what else they could do because they may have spent a greater part of their lives studying and working within a specified profession and which they believe would ensure them a good job in their new country. The new immigrants are then referred to various government offices to seek help with credential assessment. In the mean time, time marches on and they need to find a job to take care of their families. The stress is enormous, and more so if the newcomer had no idea that this was the fate that awaits them.
Some people complain afterwards, that if they knew they would not have come. I doubt whether this is really true. The people who decide to leave their country of birth do not make that decision easily, especially if they are not a refugee and running for their lives. They make the decision to uproot their family for greener pastures that many believe are available in Western countries. Being the eternal optimists as immigrants generally are, at the time of departure, they believe that once they set foot on the soil they will be able to prove to the foreign government that they can do the job. When they get here, they find they cannot even get to the door.
Assessing foreign credentials is a time consuming task and it is nothing new. It has been around for as long as immigrants have come to Western shores looking for a better way of life.
According to a recent report by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, more than 1.3 million college-educated immigrants are unemployed or working in unskilled jobs, such as washing dishes or driving cabs.
Michael Fix, senior vice president of the Migration Policy Institute, said the need to help immigrant professionals gain the requisite credentials and experience is particularly acute now that the nation faces the impending retirement of 77 million baby boomers, considered the most skilled workforce in history. In California, for instance, the fastest growing occupations are computer software engineer and registered nurse.
This might also be the catalyst for Canadian government to push it to establish a stronger policy issue to stop the waste of immigrant education when there are such high demands in the country for the very skills that are underutilized.
In Manitoba for example, there is a department under the Labour and Immigration that was set up to handle foreign credential assessment. Recently the department established a new position and already hired its first Fairness Commissioner to provide another level where immigrants can take their issues dealing credential assessment. This is an encouraging development but how much it will help immigrants get their credentials assessed quickly and fairly is another matter. Time will tell.
In the meantime, it may worth potential migrants to start thinking about how their qualifications will be assessed and perhaps take courses either on line or by correspondence to bring them up to speed with the North American requirements.
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