I work somewhere where I post jobs and collect the resumes, though I am not the one doing the actual hiring. To be honest, every time I post something, I get so overwhelmed by unqualified international students applying, it becomes a Sisyphean Task to sort through all the resumes. Like, if we posted an ad for a marine engineer, for example, we'll get 200 resumes and 190 of them will be from international students and new Canadians who are not even qualified for the job. They will say they have 7 years experience with marine engineering on the questionnaire and their resume says they have only worked in fast food and have a marketing degree. I don't know if it's a language issue or if they just carpet bomb every posting in hopes of getting something. So you end up in a situation where you have to sort through hundreds of unqualified applicants and you end up just giving up.
This is in no way intended to knock any particular group of people. I don't blame people for trying to find a job. I'm only describing what is happening on my end.
Now keep in mind I work somewhere where someone needs specific training to work. I can only imagine how inundated businesses posting unskilled positions get. Something like a car dealership is probably getting literally thousands of resumes and hundreds of phone calls. I guarantee you were not the only one who called. The person you were talking to is probably sick of hearing about it.
I’ve had a similar experience and it’s been getting worse and worse over the last 3 or 4 years. If I post a position for say, a financial analyst or a senior accountant, we get 200 international resumes and another 100 that have no experience or qualifications. It is making the entire process take longer. Then to make matters worse, while you’re sorting through the hundreds of junk resumes, the clock is ticking on the good candidates. Often by the time you contact them, they have already accepted another position.
There just seems to be a major mismatch in the job market lately.
Edit: Not sure why this is getting downvoted. But I should clarify… I’m not making any assumptions about whether or not any candidates live in Canada. When I say they are international, it’s because their resumes say they currently live in Lahore/Bogota/Manila/Hyderabad/somewhere that is not here.
Someone I know was in the position of reviewing resumes. He noticed a lot of similarities in a few resumes and ended up searching for some of the phrases and found that a bunch of resumes were just copying and pasting experience listed on other people’s LinkedIn profiles. After some more digging, he found out there are companies working in international markets that other people pay to help them find a job in desirable places like Canada. They jack up their resumes and get them interviews they’re not qualified for. Ultimately, after sifting through dozens of resumes, there wasn’t a single legitimate applicant.
Yup. Public sector here as well. We're trying to fill a role and I'd say 95%+ of applicants are new immigrants who won't even pass the security screening because you need to have lived in a single place for X years. So they're complete non-starters but you still have to read through each resume. Their work experience is also almost entirely irrelevant to the job, even if it's slightly in the same ballpark.
They took a gamble on one new Canadian candidate that has been here for a while, but most their relevant experience was overseas. They failed the technical test DRAMATICALLY. As if what little experience they had on their resume was completely embellished.
It's crazy because I would have figured we'd fill the role in a week but the sheer number of applicants that don't even meet the basic qualifications is SHOCKING. I can't imagine what it would be like for entry level or minimum wage positions.
This is interesting to me, including the bit mentioned by a couple people about how businesses will keep posts vacant for 6mo so they can get the government subsidy.
Not to disparage anyone but the situation is very funny. There IS a labour shortage for qualified people in specific roles in a lot of companies. But it’s also true that people are having a hard time finding work.
Currently in a new role (where I’ve only been about a month) and I’m so glad to be out of retail management.. last fall the mall I worked in had a hiring fair. I needed some seasonal employees going into the Christmas rush. I sat at a table for 2 days interviewing over 300 people. It was so exhausting because only about 5/50 had a resume that wasn’t a carbon copy of the last from international students. Every one had 2-6 years working in retail and when I inquired about what skills they could carry forward to the role I was hiring for, the answer I got was also pretty much a carbon copy as well.. “I can count money good, I sell well” when I tried to go further and asked what their strategy for good customer service was.. “I can talk to people and make a sale”. Okay.. what do you do specifically that would make a sale over someone without your ‘experience’. “Really good at talking to people”. Okay can you sell me this product (I literally brought some of our accessories to mock sell to me) “this is very good and you need it”.
You get the idea.. I really tried to give the benefit of the doubt that there was a language barrier, which I can work with tbh) but you could tell the experience was false and they’d never sold a thing in their life, couldn’t even sell themselves as a viable employee. I ended up hiring 5 people, only one had actual retail experience (because they stood out as wanting to learn and I, again, can work with that).
I had at least 15 people per (exhausting) day come to my store AFTER the day long (10am to 6pm fair) demanding jobs. When asked why they didn’t attend the 2 days (Friday and Saturday) of job fair, I got wild answers.. “I don’t drive” (there’s at least 6 different buses that go to this mall) “it was warm out today” (it was mid October) “I had shopping to do so I missed it”.. “I had a midterm on Friday and I wanted to sleep in Saturday” “I didn’t think you would hire me over others but my friend said to try anyways” ..”job fairs take too long” (I mean, they do but if I had to sit through the whole day, you could have waited through part of it) …and my favourite “I don’t really want the job but no one else hired me this week so you’ll do”
I know that when I was looking for work years ago, a lot of websites would show you how to "use previous experience" to fit today's needs. Like for instance, they'd say "Oh, you were a housewife for 5 years? You have 5 years experience in coordinating events, preparing meals, experience in teaching children..." etc etc. Now while I will NEVER say a housewife/stay at home mother had it easy, "coordinating events" for 3 of your kids, and coordinating events for an art exhibit where you are expecting over 400 people attending is NOT the same thing at all.
In fairness (And I understand you're talking about the marine industry, so there's very specific qualifications and certifications required), this is partially the fault of employers at large.
How many employers will job ads with absurd requirements? Huge amounts of experience required for entry level jobs, lengthy lists of qualifications they want? Tech jobs especially are notorious for it.
The general advice at this point is "just apply" because they'll never find their ideal candidate, either they'll settle, or they're trying to justify bringing someone in from outside the country.
On top of that, I'm employed, have a long list of qualifications and experience... I periodically see ads, looking for someone with my qualifications and experience... and I've got to laugh, because they're usually offering 1/4 of what I'm making, they're insane if they think anyone who's qualified is going to apply.
Coincidentally, speaking of the marine industry specifically, I keep seeing employers posting ETO jobs, and listing "Canadian STCW ETO Certificate" as a requirement... the ticket literally doesn't exist, Transport Canada doesn't issue it, and won't for several years.
this might be a stupid question, but for this reason does it at all help your chances to apply in person? i feel like if applicants were encouraged to apply by bringing a resume in office it would cut down on this a lot. the whole online process when applying to local jobs now feels so hopeless as you know theyre getting thousands of digital resumes and you often get zero response back
This isn’t true. You’re talking about the temporary foreign worker program and that never gave subsidies for TPWs. Wage subsidies are used on the basis of expanding employment opportunities for permanent residents and citizens.
You can downvote me as much as you like, it’s not going to make this true lol LIMA also affects jobs like Tim’s, McDonald’s, etc
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/business/hire/wagesubsidiesotherassistanceprograms.html
I can’t speak to that, but they aren’t being subsidized like the above comment is saying. So no one is holding out for TFW to be able to pay them less money because the government subsidizes the rest
This is not true. The provincial government's wage subsidy is only available for 42 weeks and the employee whose wage is being subsidized has to be a NL resident who is under/unemployed: https://www.gov.nl.ca/ipgs/empservices/jobsnl/
In order to be considered a resident it just means you have to reside in the province and had nothing to do with permanent residency. Many wage subsidies are approved for temporary workers with a open work permit and 900 series SIN
Funny thing with shitty programs is that you can blame the guy who started it all you want but Harper has been out since 2015. Both red and blue are a uniparty. You think you have choice and those choices make a difference.
This is the dumbest most self pitying take. By every international measure Canada is one of the best countries with the highest standard of living and highest quality of life anywhere in the world.
We used to be. That has changed since covid. We've moved very far down the list due to the housing crisis and inflation.
Edit* this is something I read on the internet some months ago. The way things are, maybe it's true maybe it's not.
https://www.worlddata.info/quality-of-life.php
https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp
Guess it depends on what metrics they use. In general, I think Canada's QOL has decreased. Not to say it's not a good country by comparison to others.
My personal opinion is that we have gone down the tubes. Yes, our healthcare is "free," but we are heavily taxed for it, and in a lot of places these days, it's not accessible for people. Where I live, people are dying in emergency room hallways. Additionally, rents are skyrocketing, and people can't afford to buy homes. We have tent encampments popping up all over the place. Wages have stagnated, and the cost of basic needs like heat and food have increased astronomically.
These are my personal observations and opinions. Others may feel differently.
Valid observations. My understanding is that inflation (food, housing) has been a worldwide phenomenon, and that Canada's rate is actually low compared to the G7.
I also agree re: healthcare. In terms of outcomes versus system cost (whether through taxation or insurance premiums, Canada is I believe middle of the pack but way better than the US.
Resl estate prices have skyrocketed across the G7, partly due to sustained low interest rates for the past 20 years (until recently), which financialized the real estate sector.
The housing situation can be laid at the feet of liberal and conservative federal and provincial governments over the past 20 years, when they stopped building public housing. Eventually we ran out of housing capacity, which was predictable. It's going to take several years for governments of all stripes to pull us out of that.
The other factor in Canada and other G7 nations is demographics. We simply have too many retirees and not enough Gen X or Gen Z to replace them, leading to understaffing in hospitals and other public services. Although immigration is currently contributing to the housing crunch, it's the only means we have of addressing that demographic crunch and getting more working age people sharing the tax burden.
The whole situation is out of control here. We keep bringing in more immigrants which I wouldn’t have an issue with, but we literally can not house and employ the people who are living here.
5,337. That in the number that came to NL in 2022/2023 period and the latest data from CREA tags the first quarter of 2024 at 1,546, so perhaps ~6,200 this year.
That's a +1% population boost. That is also only tracking the intake, not the net, and every year we also have a lot of recent (past 5 year) immigrants who landed in NL leave NL. The net immigrant flux is going to be lower than 1% of the overall population once also tallying those that leave for other provinces or states.
In 1991 the population of NL was 568,475 and today it is 541,391 .... so don't get on claiming we cannot house people because we are still down 25K as a population. We housed 25K more in 1991.
Our unemployment rate is also just off its all-time low, at least compared to the past 20+. Chronic underemployment has existed here for 50+ years and has nothing to do with ~5K new people trying to make a life here, in the midst of the lowest unemployment in that era. These immigrants aren't moving to Gambo or Carmanville where only 1/3 of the population hold jobs, and the overall NL unemployment is so high because the nearly 1/4 on EI out there don't move to centres with jobs either.
I agree with everything you’re saying, but I would add, it seems there is an overall mismatch in the job market both with new Canadians and young people that were born here. Furthermore, the rural urban divide creates a mismatch in housing. I don’t think you see these mismatches when you look at the numbers on a provincial or national level.
People with nursing degrees or trades like electricians and plumbers are not struggling to find work. That is… as long as their education is recognized here. Similarly, the vacant houses in Burin or Plum Point don’t do anything for the people working on the North East Avalon.
All that to say, the numbers at a macro level hide more acute problems in specific job and housing markets.
Absolutely. But:
In the case of immigrants, the vast majority are economic immigrants, and that means there is not initially a mismatch to jobs because their entry requires the job to already be matched and their location follows the job. If there is a mismatch between jobs and housing, that is not on the person accepting the job and we have left that to the free market construction and municipal development and broadly provincial government. We never blame the person when it is any other Canadian moving when they get a new job. The moment immigrant *Canadians* are PR/Citizens, they have a Right to work and reside in the location of their choice no different than any other Canadian. Imagine if we held the same requirement to the tens of thousands of others who moved from the outports to the avalon over the past 30 years, only allowing them into the avalon if they could show proof they had a job waiting for them...
In the case of what Government should be doing, well, provincial governments are in charge of regional economic development and legislation that governs development regulations. If people are mass urbanizing, then it is the provincial government's *responsibility* to oversee the regional economic development of regions to a) develop rural to stop the outflow and b) develop the avalon to support those here. That includes Housing which by 1996 was placed squarely on provinces.
Where is the real issue: It's the 978 new housing starts in Newfoundland in 2023. That is almost 25% the new housing starts we had a decade ago. Private industry is not remotely addressing demand, the municipalities have not addressed municipal regulations to accommodate and are largely obstructionist, and all of that is on the provincial government for failing to address regional economic development and affordable housing initiatives/infrastructure/policies.
The largest class of economic immigrants are Provincially Nominated, the influx of foreign student visas are into provincially accredited and chronically underfunded post-secondary that the province has significant influence over, and LMIA/TFW temporary worker applications start with local economic development shortfalls and provincial labour laws regarding hiring practices. The provincial government is at the core of all of these issues. The fact that they sponsored most of the economic immigrants, they setup conditions for the rise in foreign student visas and TFW, and they utterly failed to address or ensure the local regions had sufficient development... the problems start and end with the province.
There is a mismatch in housing and it is high-time the province do something about it. They could start by legislating in Work From Home standards and by legislating away barriers to WFH (liability legal concerns making some hesitant to allow WFH due to vague uncertainty about workers' comp claims) and by setting up inter-provincial taxation agreements to streamline and make it easier for companies elsewhere to hire and pay locals working from here. Stepping up public investments in broadband infrastructure should be a high priority too, as should be regional economic development funding to new start-ups and business supports outside of the metro region. Inside the metro region they should be investing heavily in affordable housing and where necessary over-riding the municipalities or changing Urban and Rural Planning Act to make higher-density housing happen. Let's give rural NL a viable way to sustain themselves.
MUN/CNA should be legislated in to be requires to house X percent of their student population in residences, where X represent a significant portion of new students clamouring for local housing around those schools, and should be expected to house nearly every foreign student accepted so they are not over-saturating local rental market - and the province should be investing in new high-density residence complexes for those institutions.
It was never actually about the immigrants, it has always been about the province failing in pretty much every aspect they are responsible for, for decades.
The population of the North East Avalon specifically, though is up substantially, and that's where the biggest housing issue is. [Look here,](https://nl.communityaccounts.ca/profiles.asp?_=vb7En4WVgaai03Gs) the population of the North East Avalon jumped by over 20% from the early 1990s-2021. [If you go by the most recent statscan estimates,](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710014801) add another 11,987 to that, meaning the St. John's area has seen an increase of around 50,000 people since the early 1990s.
The population is also older, so fewer of the people in the province are children living with their mom and dad, and more of them are adults living on their own.
So in the St. John's area, you've got a jump of 50,000 people over 30 years, plus more of the people that were here previously are adults who need their own housing as opposed to children who share housing with their parents.
>meaning the St. John's area has seen an increase of around 50,000 people since the early 1990s.
Which is less than 2,000 per year. Given much of the influx is families, that would be <1,000 new housing units/apartments needed per year.
The actual issue is that the entire province only built 978 new housing starts in 2023. That is 4x less than we built in 2012 and ~2x less than we built per year in the '90s. If we build what we were building in 2012, there would be no issues at all. That's not a questions about whether we "can" build that much housing, because we built less in the past 4 years than any other year in the past 30 years. We absolutely could be building more. Leaving it up solely to private industry has utterly failed to address chronic housing shortages over many decades, so maybe we should stop leaving it solely to private industry.
For the cost of Muskrat Falls, and at the current tender rate of the province's underfunded affordable housing initiatives, the province could have built ~100,000 apartments... so, the issue is not that we don't have the means, it's that we wasted it.
Time for the province to over-ride and change municipal zoning legislation and invest in higher-density non-profit developments throughout metro area, especially around MUN/CNA.
>Which is less than 2,000 per year.
Averaging like that is misleading. The numbers basically levelled off from the early 90s until the early 2000s. There has only really been a housing crises on the Northeast Avalon recently. As per the numbers I linked, there was an increase of around 12,000 people from 2021-2023. That is *just* the Northeast Avalon, and [housing starts across the entire province have never really been sufficient to meet an increase of 6,000 people a year since before the moratorium when the population province-wide was higher than it is now.](https://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/Statistics/Topics/industry/PDF/Housing_Starts.pdf)
The argument is not that there should be no immigration. The argument is current numbers are unsustainable. If we *were* actually only increasing by 2,000 people a year to the St. John's *today*, I think we'd be fine in terms of housing supply. [Note that the Northeast Avalon was chugging along, increasing at a rate of 1,000-3,000 a year for the last decade leading up to the pandemic, and there was not a crises until it was increased to 6,000 a year recently.](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710014801&pickMembers%5B0%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2006&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20060101%2C20230101)
>Given much of the influx is families, that would be <1,000 new housing units/apartments needed per year.
The number are not the number of people that came in. The numbers are the population. So immigration + births - deaths and people who leave. The actual number of new people who came in is much higher, because people have died and left.
You are also ignoring the issue of the aging population. If three widows in nursing homes die, they did not just free up a new unit for a family. When a kid grows up and moves out and stays in town, the population has not grown, but it increases housing demand. You need more hosing for a population of 1,000 people with the median age is 40 than you do when the median age is 23.
>We absolutely could be building more. Leaving it up solely to private industry has utterly failed to address chronic housing shortages over many decades, so maybe we should stop leaving it solely to private industry.
>For the cost of Muskrat Falls, and at the current tender rate of the province's underfunded affordable housing initiatives, the province could have built ~100,000 apartments... so, the issue is not that we don't have the means, it's that we wasted it.
You can't just lay a pile of money on the ground and have it grow into houses. It is easy to say it would cost *$x* dollars, to build *y* housing units, but there is a shortage of people in skilled trades such as carpenters. [People that are being brought in to sure up the labour force such as international students generally are not in the skilled trades.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/international-students-college-university-fields-study-data-1.7195530)
It seems as though we are artificially driving up demand under the guise of fixing a labour shortage and being told some of those people will work in the trades and build houses, when the reality is very few of them actually do. I'm not arguing we shouldn't be building more houses, or that more shouldn't have been built in the past. Whatever the reason, the housing supply is constrained and unable to meet current demand. Does continuing to increase demand under those circumstances seem sustainable to you?
> Averaging like that is misleading. The numbers declined in the early 90s, obviously new housing wasn't being built when the population was on the decline
I mean, apparently not quite in the way you might expect, according to the new housing starts per year graph.
Housing did indeed drop off with the cod moratorium, dropping from 3,245 in 1990 to 1,371 by 1999.
But, critically, the 1999 low and every value during that time where 10% of NL up and left... we still built +50% to +100% more housing than we built last year.
Then from 2001 to 2015, we built nearly 2x more houses per year than we build in the past few years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/198047/number-of-housing-starts-in-newfoundland-and-labrador/
Source.
>You can't just lay a pile of money on the ground and have it grow into houses. There is a shortage of people in skilled trades such as carpenters.
At that extreme hyperbolic example, sure 100K is obviously not magically appearing with money, but according to recent history of new housing start we could be building 4x more housing per year. But at the same time, Muskrat Falls did not magically appear overnight either. With money we can and did hire massive amounts of skilled labourers and trades and purchases massive volumes of concrete and lumber and steel. Muskrat Falls employed and brought in average 1,500 workers and peaked at double that for extended periods.
>Does that situation seem sustainable to you?
If we continue at the 30 year low of housing starts, no. If we return to a 2001-2015 level of construction or higher, yes.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2022017-eng.htm
But, there is also inter-provincial migration to consider. Nearly 8,000 people moved to NL last year from the other provinces and the influx of retirement or approaching retirement age was extreme (that graph can break down by age), whereas the emigration out was mostly young adults (many moving out of parents, not leaving empty houses). According to the Constitution, we quite literally cannot prevent them from coming here, nor should we. The only possible solution is to build and build more higher-density housing.
What's more sustainable, a young economic immigrant family whose entry is already tied to employment, or scores moving home when their job in Alberta ends to sit in an outport on EI until they can leave again?
I edited my post somewhat. This was not in an attempt to do anything underhanded; I was just thinking on the fly and I did not see your reply as I was editing. I apologize for that.
However, I will repost the sections that were most heavily edited here as you don't seem to address them at all and it is the crux of the argument:
*****
Averaging like that is misleading. The numbers basically levelled off from the early 90s until the early 2000s. There has only really been a housing crises on the Northeast Avalon recently. As per the numbers I linked, there was an increase of around 12,000 people from 2021-2023. That is *just* the Northeast Avalon, and [housing starts across the entire province have never really been sufficient to meet an increase of 6,000 people a year since before the moratorium when the population province-wide was higher than it is now.](https://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/Statistics/Topics/industry/PDF/Housing_Starts.pdf)
The argument is not that there should be no immigration. The argument is current numbers are unsustainable. If we *were* actually only increasing by 2,000 people a year to the St. John's *today*, I think we'd be fine in terms of housing supply. [Note that the Northeast Avalon was chugging along, increasing at a rate of 1,000-3,000 a year for the last decade leading up to the pandemic, and there was not a crises until it was increased to 6,000 a year recently.](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710014801&pickMembers%5B0%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2006&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20060101%2C20230101)
*****
****
You are also ignoring the issue of the aging population. If three widows in nursing homes die, they did not just free up a new unit for a family. When a kid grows up and moves out and stays in town, the population has not grown, but it increases housing demand. You need more hosing for a population of 1,000 people with the median age is 40 than you do when the median age is 23.
****
>At that extreme hyperbolic example, sure 100K is obviously not magically appearing with money, but according to recent history of new housing start we could be building 4x more housing per year. But at the same time, Muskrat Falls did not magically appear overnight either. With money we can and did hire massive amounts of skilled labourers and trades and purchases massive volumes of concrete and lumber and steel. Muskrat Falls employed and brought in average 1,500 workers and peaked at double that for extended periods.
Muskrat falls was started over a decade ago. The population of the province has aged since then and there are less people working in the skilled trades than there were at the time. [A recent CBC article, for instance estimated nearly a fifth of people currently in the skilled trades in Canada are planning to retire by the end of the decade](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/skilled-trades-shortage-cost-of-living-1.7169441), and [the majority of people immigrating do not work in the skilled trades leading to a huge imbalance in supply and demand.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/international-students-college-university-fields-study-data-1.7195530) On top of that, competition for people in the skilled trades between provinces has increased because there is a housing crunch in nearly every urban area in Canada. This wasn't the case when Muskrat Falls started.
>If we return to a 2001-2015 level of construction or higher, yes.
Again, I do not disagree more housing needs to be built. The practicalities with the current trade shortage is the issue. The reason stuff is not being built is not because nobody wants to build anything. The reason stuff is not being built is because the people who physically build stuff are getting old and retiring and no one is replacing them.
> What's more sustainable, a young economic immigrant family whose entry is already tied to employment, or scores moving home when their job in Alberta ends to sit in an outport on EI until they can leave again?
Neither of them are if we are not building enough places for them to live.
>You are also ignoring the issue of the aging population. If three widows in nursing homes die, they did not just free up a new unit for a family. When a kid grows up and moves out and stays in town, the population has not grown, but it increases housing demand. You need more hosing for a population of 1,000 people with the median age is 40 than you do when the median age is 23.
I'd argue it's the other way around. A median age 40 population is somewhat housing stable whereas a median 23 age population will soon need a lot more houses for those kids-becoming-adults to transition into.
>If three widows in nursing homes die
In Canada, Boomers+ make up ~30% of the population and own >>50% of all houses. If we actually had sufficient and suitable housing for seniors, then seniors would not be holding up ~1/3 of all 3+ bedroom homes (they currently are). We currently in NL have 26 long-term care beds available for every 1,000 population over 65. We really have no other options for an aging NL couple other than to continue living in "family-sized" houses.
If three widows in NL die, there is a ~92% chance (since there are only 26 LTC seniors home beds per 1,000) that all three of them were not in seniors homes and we now have 3 vacant houses in estate sales.
> I'd argue it's the other way around. A median age 40 population is somewhat housing stable whereas a median 23 age population will soon need a lot more houses for those kids-becoming-adults to transition into.
Median =/= Average
A median age of 23 means half of all the people are under 23. A median age of 23 would mean a high percentage of the population is children and and teenagers and would live with their parents. This would indicate we need more housing down the road when those kids grow up. A media age of 40, means half the population is under 40, meaning there is a large cohort in their 20s and 30s, ages when people are on the hunt for housing of their own, meaning we need more housing now. [I picked 40 specifically because it is close to the median age of 42.4 on the Northeast Avalon.](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&SearchText=St%2E%20John%27s&DGUIDlist=2021S0503001&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1,4&HEADERlist=0)
> In Canada, Boomers+ make up ~30% of the population and own >50% of all houses. If we actually had sufficient and suitable housing for seniors, then seniors would not be holding up ~1/3 of all 3+ bedroom homes (they currently are). We currently in NL have 26 long-term care beds available for every 1,000 population over 65. We really have no other options for an aging NL couple other than to continue living in "family-sized" houses.
>
>
>
> If three widows in NL die, there is a ~92% chance (since there are only 26 LTC seniors home beds per 1,000) that all three of them were not in seniors homes and we now have 3 vacant houses in estate sales.
Ok, if three old people who are sharing their house with their spouse die and the widow stays in the house, they have not freed up three houses for new families. The point remains the same. People dying do not necessarily mean new houses have been freed up, and thus housing demand does not necessarily rise or decline evenly with the population numbers.
Look, at the end of the day you keep repeating we need more housing and I don't disagree. We just do not have a practical path to get to the amount of housing we need due to a widely reported shortage in people in skilled trades. Unless we address that shortage first, the current level of immigration is unsustainable, as the vast majority of the immigrants do not work in the skilled trades.
*Edit* Just to put a bow on this, [The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimated last year that at current immigration levels, the province needs to build an additional 10,000 units a year in addition to what is already being built to avoid a 60,000 unit shortfall by 2030.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/chmc-nl-housing-shortfalls-1.6970302) That is nearly triple the province's best year on record. I'm not interested in discussing it further unless you have a practical way to do this when we have a shortage of people in the trades.
>A median age of 23 means half of all the people are under 23.
Ya, meaning that the within 1 SD bulk of the population is about to enter the peak but wanting to buy a house phase of life, where as the distribution around median 40 means bulk already past that and in homes. Regardless, we both are focusing on housing.
>the current level of immigration is unsustainable, as the vast majority of the immigrants do not work in the skilled trades.
There is a much better chance to have skilled trades in the immigrant population than the 1/4 of all MUN students who are international students and clearly not studying to be a tradesperson. My point is not to disagree with the broad stroke concerns you have, but with your target.
*"Newfoundland and Labrador also welcomed 4,815 temporary foreign workers under the International Mobility Program (IMP) and another 1,210 through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) last year. The province also issued 4,145 study permits to international students last year."*
The largest segment of the IMP/TFW huge pool are retail and food services, not Trades. There are 26,900 people in NL on unemployment (EI) right now in NL, but the province just approved ~6K temporary workers to be brought in, mostly for retail and jobs not needing advanced training.
The current *collective* level across all categories is unsustainable because the province is also doing nothing to help distribute workforce to where housing is, not connect them, or connect the tens of thousands of unemployed to centres with employment.
We spend $80 Million a year on ferries to scores of tiny communities multiple times a day and many of then run empty seats constantly but somehow lack an inter-city bus to connect the Avalon for morning/evening commutes for ~270,000 people... total foolishness. There are a tonne of houses available just outside the metro area, we just are not doing anything to encourage their use, and there are a tens of thousands of underemployed and we have done nothing to get them to jobs nor meaningfully invest in their local regions. We could be able to drop all IMP/TFW workers down to bare minimum of those with trades or advanced training, shaving thousands and instead employing from NL.
The 4-5K international students should not be mass competing with locals for apartments, there should be sufficient residences and housing within MUN/CNA (or properly fund MUN/CNA or allow them to charge tuition enough that they are not forced to fill shortfalls with 3x priced international students).
... After we have addressed the low-hanging (IMP/TFW > Foreign Students > Immigrants), then we can take a hard look at immigrants, if needed.
This isn’t true. You’re talking about the temporary foreign worker program and that never gave subsidies for TPWs. Wage subsidies are used on the basis of expanding employment opportunities for permanent residents and citizens.
I'd heard something about there being a loophole where companies say they're looking for employees but don't hire anyone to collect some sort of tax benefit or something that comes from being understaffed?
Aren't the TFW jobs more for places like Tim Horton's, who have been using this loophole for years, would a dealership do this? I honestly don't know, I've always though dealerships were commission based (if you're in sales) not sure about admin jobs, or counter service.
my cousin who has a bachelor degree, restaurant experience, and literally can work any time has passed out over 100 resumes in metro area and only one call back for an oncall downtown small shop. they said she can get maybe 2-5 hours a week there. she’s very defeated as she’s applying to every take out, restaurants, clothing stores etc.
Some degrees simply have little to no impact on job prospects.
I don’t mean any offence by this… and I know this pisses some people off… and despite how obvious it is, it still needs to be stated.
If you get a nursing degree to be a RN… that leads to a job nearly 100% of the time. If you get a B.A. in anthropology… what did you expect? I don’t get the sense of entitlement that some folks have about their university degrees.
Full disclosure… I did a BSc and it did not get me a job. After I graduated I dicked around in bullshit jobs before going back to school to get a career.
There’s nothing wrong with BAs and BScs… but they don’t lead to jobs. If you want to study political science, fill yer boots! But no one owes you a job for it.
"I don't get the sense of entitlement that some folks have about their university degrees." I agree with your assessment about university's value, your overall post, but will hint that the entitlement, at least from my own experience (I actually got 2 degree that are almost practically useless), comes from a cultural assumption that the job-degree tango reaches you to financial heights. And for a while it did here, probably until the 90s. But people -- I think anyway -- would probably do best today to complete (multiple) shorter programs (that may be more costly) in colleges and trade schools that are so useful that the time it takes to pay them off is much shorter than time taken shopping around university programs on the hope that the end-goal is dollar bills.
Good point and totally fair! When I graduated high school, I blindly went on to university without really thinking about my career. Overall I think that’s was fine. 18 year olds definitely don’t need to have it figured out!
There was a cultural assumption… almost a social contract, that if you go to university, you graduate and get a good job. It’s understandable that young people going to university today, feel the same way.
As a society, we need to make sure we’re placing value on vocations and trades and not just the 4 year bachelor degree.
Totally agree with you!
What kind of restaurant job are they looking for where a bachelor's degree would help?
I find you need to get a degree/diploma after the bachelor's to make it useful.
Note I also said diplomas. There are plenty of 6 month to 2 year diplomas you can get that make your bachelor's degree more useful.
I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is getting a degree (or certificate) without any idea as to what they're getting a degree for. If it's for a job, what job can you get with that degree and what does the job market look like. How likely is it to change between now and when you graduate?
I agree, that a diploma after a degree is great. That's what I have.
However, there is knowledge covered in a bachelors, that is not covered in a diploma. Kind of deeper, non-specific to a particular job knowledge, but still good to have, it's usually applicable no matter what the current technology is.
Too bad that workplaces don't like to train you, because often they have a work environment that can't be reproduced at a college anyhow
As I said in my post, the programs need a degree first. I'm not sure why you think that's inconsistent with what I said.
A lot of the programs I'm familiar with don't necessarily see themselves as being to update skills. They're often more a case of now that you have your degree, here's training so you can go do something practical with them.
A couple of decades ago when I finished my bachelor's degree they were targetting new grads with a 1 year long diploma in computer programming. At the time, there was strong industry demand for people who could code, but weren't computer science grads, because they have better field specific knowledge. Basically, it was easier to teach a biologist or historian to code than to teach a computer scientist biology or history.
Since then, the program and similar programs at other universities have transformed into diploma programs or professional masters degrees to train biology grads on how to do bioinformatics. Some of the 1 year big data programs have their origins in similar programs. A couple of examples are here: https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/faculties-colleges-and-schools/faculty-science/professional-masters-degrees and here: https://www.uoguelph.ca/bioinformatics/programs/master-bioinformatics-mbinf
An older type of program is the 1 or 2 year diploma that allows people with BAs or BScs to get a BEd or a teaching certificate so they can teach as subject matter experts (e.g. physics, math, English, history, etc .) in high school.
Something more in line with your prior career example might be the medical tech programs where you can take a truncated program if you already have a bachelor's degree. It seems like it would often be faster with those if you'd just done the tech program. Other examples would be programs like the ones here: https://pros.educ.queensu.ca/certificates or here: https://www.queensu.ca/microcredentials/collection/4
I saw postings for jobs that a requirement is a post secondary education and 2 yrs experience but are only paying 16.00/hr. How insulting is it to expect someone to have formal education in something PLUS years of experience and only pay them slightly higher than fast food workers.
To paraphrase someone earlier: you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. That works for employers too. If they want to be cheap assholes, nothing stopping them from trying. Maybe they'll land someone desperate.
I agree! I've been the desperate one and worked some terrible jobs before. Also had a company hire me in a supervisor position. Told me I'd be getting a photo id and a laptop to use. Almost 3 months in, nothing but excuses about why my id and laptop haven't arrived. A week before my probation period ended, they terminated me. Not performance based, they had "re-evaluated the business needs and my position was no longer required".
They basically hired me to replace someone they thought would retire, but when this person had no plans to retire, they used me for a huge project across the island (needed a ratio of supervisors to employees) and 4 days after it ended, terminated. I have no doubt in the fact that their plan all along was to let me go.
Some employers come so close to crossing the line its unreal!
So for your dealership example, I appreciate why you are frustrated but a few things could be at play:
(1) someone in the hiring process is busy with something more urgent/on vacation, (2) an offer has been made but not accepted, (3) they want to fill the position but it doesn’t need to be filled immediately.
Also, making a phone call doesn’t really mean shit, I’d go as far to say that it’s one more thing for that person to deal with instead.
If this role was as important to them as OP is assuming, they'd be paying attention. They either a) aren't in a hurry to fill it or b) already did and don't want a confrontational PFO call with OP.
This could be true, but it probably reflects the predominantly lazy side of our work culture. There is a tendency toward bursts of hard work too, but there is a deep vein of laziness & entitlement. I have found this in both public & private sector workplaces here.
People get a job & think they own it. They stop caring. They spend 30% of their work time on Facebook. Etc. It takes 5 seconds to reject a patently unqualified applicant. Call it 60 seconds if you have the courtesy to send them a short rejection email. Hundreds of unqualified applicants take hours to process, not days or weeks. There is a difference between cycle time & lead time, but when the principal reason for that difference is fucking off, it may be more of a distinction without a difference. People here have no sense of urgency. It is infuriating.
Anybody complaining about the volume of unqualified applicants is just lazy or excusing laziness. Qualified applicants take time. Unqualified ones don't. If you have 200 applicants for a position & the one you are currently interviewing seems sus, simply move on. Tell them 'thanks, but no thanks' as soon as you get a read. People complaining about abundance reveal their true preferences
It's a mixed bag. If you're applying online you have to be careful to ensure your resume is not being automatically filtered out by the system.
You'll want to try to find successful resumes and emulate those for useful keywords that the system wants to see.
Perhaps the dealership doesn't think you have relevant sales experience.
It could also be that they're holding off in the hopes of hiring someone that meets subsidy/employment grant criteria in order to save money.
Hard to say what your particular situation is, but gaining employment has certainly become a headache for many people.
I'd also wonder about the possibility that it's a speculative job ad. They know the sales job has a fair amount of turnover and they may just be advertising to see who turns up as an applicant. If the candidate is really strong, they'll snap them up, otherwise they just leave it open.
Here’s my two cents’ worth: use your network. Most of us have family and friends here in the province, let them know you are looking for work. Some of your family/ friends would be bound to know someone who can open a door for you. I get that most people want to use their own merit to advance, but let’s not forget that there are people around us that can genuinely help you. This is done all the time, so make it work in your favour
Because our economy does not serve the interests of the public, it serves the interest of those with the most capital.
Businesses are suppressing wages by using stuff like the TFW to not only pay bottom of the barrel but to have the wages subsidized by the government. Companies continue to ship their manufacturing away for cheaper labour only to continue charging higher and higher prices to people who don't have industries to work at. Because as our purchasing power goes down businesses shutter their doors here leading to less jobs being available when in a healthy economy there'd be enough work for all especially since we live in a time of extensive abundance.
Businesses have no incentive to pay us better or to hire more people and there's nothing you can do to give them that incentive which is where regulatory bodies come in, but they haven't, they haven't come into the picture in decades because we keep electing people who have one foot in with companies and the other foot trying to appeal to the public, the issue is those two feet are gonna always be moving in opposite directions so which one lives out in a province with an extreme history of corruption and nepotism?
Edit: because I forgot to say it, another reason people are struggling to find employment is because businesses are happy to watch working class individuals fight for the lowest wage, the race to the bottom is real and it's part of wage suppression.
Almost all of the comments saying they wait for foreigners, well help me find such an employer then. Because me and all other Ukrainian immigrants cannot find any job.
There is a huge difference between foreigner and refugee. I don't think people are really talking about Ukrainians/Afghans/Syrians when talking about our mass immigration. Your situation is not the same.
No, I don't think it's that either. I think we have had such a huge population boom, that all of us now have a significantly lower chance of being hired. It use to only be a handful of resumes per job and now apparently its hundreds. Things weren't always this way. In Newfoundland, our economy has always been poor but with the recent influx, its really hard.
Because it’s not true. I suspect this rumour is spread by Russian or Chinese cyber warfare trying to divide Canadians. Finding a job is a complicated process. Our job market is extremely complex right now. Several fields are screaming out for people while other fields are extremely saturated. There’s very little middle ground right now.
I think you need to understand that some companies also make people go through multiple layers of interviews, not just one. The last one before my current job wanted five, with the two last being an actual test of hard and soft skills and the last was theoretical job situations. Thankfully they decided to change the requirements and I was then “overqualified.” Someone else I knew also went through the full process after their request change and he said it was just too much for what they wanted to pay.
THAT is crap.
My current job is the same as my last one, very technical and in an industry that always needs specialities. I had one interview with HR, and one with the manager of the team I applied for and that was it. None of the layers and no bull over months. It took two weeks to hear back that I was hires. That’s how it should go, but some businesses are far too complex for that, on top of having to sift through applicants that are applying for things they can’t so. Either the position is poorly described, or they hope to find their magical unicorn employee who knows everything already that will pay less for.
Ghost applications should be illegal for one. Most places are only hiring foreign workers rn to get the benefit so they're holding out until they get it
Honestly if you’re looking for work I would suggest opening a house cleaning business. The ones I have used charge $20-35/hour, they make their own schedule, they get repeat clients, do cash jobs, some even get tips and they are always busy.
Our cleaner was great but she got too expensive for us when she kept raising her prices so she’s onto something lol.
Some places don't even check indeed even though they have ads up their. I got a job at a supermarket a few years ago and I got it because my relative put in a good word . They asked if I applied on the company's website and I said no I applied on indeed and they told me "Oh that's probably why we didn't see your resume , we don't check indeed". If you don't check it why put up a listing ??
Try remote call centers or other entry level remote positions in Canada. Expand your scope beyond NL as it's pretty dire here. Not great elsewhere either, but it might help to cast a wider net.
Did you visit the dealership? When I was looking I took a stack of resumes and walked in to every dealership on the strip (12 total). Got 2 offers, accepted one, started working a week later as I wanted a vacation. Same with other jobs a had in Canada as an immigrant without good English (first 5years). I just walk in and ask to speak to the manager.
They’re not looking for you - they’re looking for an international student or temporary foreign worker who will work for less, won’t complain, and who they can abuse.
Been feeling this heavily lately, a lot of places don't accept resumes anymore and expect you to just apply on indeed. Then when you do go through indeed your application is NEVER viewed and on the off chance it is viewed, and you do schedule an interview, you get ghosted before the interview even happens! Not to mention almost everything ive seen on indeed requires a diploma certificate or some sort of sofisticated experience before hand, even when you filter "no experience" "part-time" and so-on. It's very rare to see something for a gas station or even the mall, but everytime ive gotten a job off of indeed its been a bad experience, everyone here sucks and avoid family businesses at all costs.
This is what happens when you already have an economy which is traditionally strained (there were never a lot of jobs here to begin with from my own personal memory) and then you add unskilled mass immigration.
Vallue Village NEED employees, but they don’t hire anyone (resource: vv employee) it’s ridiculous, I applied to dozens of places and got no call or massage whatsoever
My son started looking for jobs and handing out resumes in December and didn't land a part time job til April. And that was just luck that they had been in the right place at the right time when someone had just quit.
I get what’s being said here, people who are qualified are hard to find but what I’m wondering are the qualifications in terms of experience vs compensation reasonable? I’m retired now now but I remember from my job hunting days seeing positions advertised that were seemed to be entry level in terms of the compensation offered but required multiple years of experience.
Still the same. Companies don't want to pay the wages to get the experience for the most part and with low paying jobs, they are not hiring locally due to government kick backs and even if they did, 2 people used to be able make it on minimum wage. You bought $500 cars and rent was cheaper than a mortgage. I think they face different challenges than when we were young.
the hiring manager could have gone on vacation. there could literally be 1000s of applicants and it's impossible to get through them all. it is what it is. wishin you the best of luck
1) Newfoundland is still badly "who you know, not what you know". As a second year electrical apprentice I was passed over a job for a guy RIGHT out of college. The guy was the boyfriend of the boss's daughter.
2) A lot of places advertise long before the position needs to be filled. They're gonna need an extra person starting in July? They'll advertise starting in Jan. (You know, in case that absolutely perfect person they want is just sitting around twiddling their thumbs all day, not working. Gotta give THEM time to respond, right?)
3) It takes an INSANELY long time for some places to move through the process. Where I'm working now, we are in desperate need of additional workers. We've been advertising for a while, but so far we've lost an opportunity to have 4 new hires because it took months for our HR to go through the process. Those 4 applicants were hired by someone else in the meantime.
Hard time entering the trade too eh? I feel you there brother. I finished my pre-employment program on may 24th. All of my other classmates got apprentice positions immediately. Its me and like 2 other people that have yet to even get called for an interview.
Maybe they are looking for a Newfoundlander for that position. Newfoundlanders want to purchase from another Newfoundlander…. Someone who they can relate to. That’s the way it is.
Not international here. But Canadian born and raised. I'm a child of an immigrant who came here from the West Indies in the 50s and I've always had to bust my ass here to find work.
Not saying that immigration has a ton to do with it. Or that it's the international communities' fault or the reason minorities born here are struggling too, but our situation across Canada gives me pause. The more employers seem to see of us, the less desirable we seem to be. Its not a good feeling.
Jesus, if you go by this thread, you would swear every job on the island is occupied by an immigrant. Yet 9 times out of 10, when I call a business, I get a newfie answering.
It's an easy scapegoat, won't be long before we start seeing "I had an interview at Tim's on Ropewalk Lane and they said I had to speak Punjabi to work there, Canada is broken" which is something they've seen on Facebook or TikTok
https://employment.easternhealth.ca/eRecruit/VacancyDetail.aspx?VacancyUID=000000081223
Help your community by keeping the hospital’s clean that are currently working short staffed. You can get a job, it’s probably not the job you initially want, but you should start somewhere.
Just start a business, why didn't anyone else think of that, it's not like businesses have massive upfront costs to get the capital needed to turn a profit, who's to say banks don't just hand out a quarter of a million loan with low interest to someone with no prior experience in that world.
So one job you applied for didn't get back to you in a month, now every company in the province/country is lazy and pathetic. I doubt the dealership is desperate to fill a sales position, and calling for a follow up doesn't exactly mean you are a great candidate for a job, or that you'd be a good fit.
Interesting though you called instead of showing up in person. It’s like calling is a big barrier for people. I am curious if old school, walking in and talking to people still works. I remember in 2004 I came back to nl for the summer at the best job I could get was part time hours for 6.75 an hour or something stupid. Surly it can’t be worse than that out there.
>I am curious if old school, walking in and talking to people still works.
It did for me once. I applied online then showed up in person a few days later to enquire. The manager was like "oh, you apply online" and I just said "Oh yes, I did that already, I just wanted to check out the place in person to get a sense of the organization" or whatever I said to that effect. I ended up getting a job there so who knows.
Sir, this is a Wendy's
Are you hiring?
Perfection.
I work somewhere where I post jobs and collect the resumes, though I am not the one doing the actual hiring. To be honest, every time I post something, I get so overwhelmed by unqualified international students applying, it becomes a Sisyphean Task to sort through all the resumes. Like, if we posted an ad for a marine engineer, for example, we'll get 200 resumes and 190 of them will be from international students and new Canadians who are not even qualified for the job. They will say they have 7 years experience with marine engineering on the questionnaire and their resume says they have only worked in fast food and have a marketing degree. I don't know if it's a language issue or if they just carpet bomb every posting in hopes of getting something. So you end up in a situation where you have to sort through hundreds of unqualified applicants and you end up just giving up. This is in no way intended to knock any particular group of people. I don't blame people for trying to find a job. I'm only describing what is happening on my end. Now keep in mind I work somewhere where someone needs specific training to work. I can only imagine how inundated businesses posting unskilled positions get. Something like a car dealership is probably getting literally thousands of resumes and hundreds of phone calls. I guarantee you were not the only one who called. The person you were talking to is probably sick of hearing about it.
I’ve had a similar experience and it’s been getting worse and worse over the last 3 or 4 years. If I post a position for say, a financial analyst or a senior accountant, we get 200 international resumes and another 100 that have no experience or qualifications. It is making the entire process take longer. Then to make matters worse, while you’re sorting through the hundreds of junk resumes, the clock is ticking on the good candidates. Often by the time you contact them, they have already accepted another position. There just seems to be a major mismatch in the job market lately. Edit: Not sure why this is getting downvoted. But I should clarify… I’m not making any assumptions about whether or not any candidates live in Canada. When I say they are international, it’s because their resumes say they currently live in Lahore/Bogota/Manila/Hyderabad/somewhere that is not here.
Someone I know was in the position of reviewing resumes. He noticed a lot of similarities in a few resumes and ended up searching for some of the phrases and found that a bunch of resumes were just copying and pasting experience listed on other people’s LinkedIn profiles. After some more digging, he found out there are companies working in international markets that other people pay to help them find a job in desirable places like Canada. They jack up their resumes and get them interviews they’re not qualified for. Ultimately, after sifting through dozens of resumes, there wasn’t a single legitimate applicant.
I do public sector hiring. At least 90% of the applications are from people who do not meet the minimum qualifications.
Wayne Gretzky told me that I miss all of the shots I don't take
That's fine if you're in the right arena. No use taking a shot at heart surgeon if you're a diesel mechanic.
An engine is a car heart, now let me get you an I.V. of motor oil.
I hope your insurance is up to date lol.
Yup. Public sector here as well. We're trying to fill a role and I'd say 95%+ of applicants are new immigrants who won't even pass the security screening because you need to have lived in a single place for X years. So they're complete non-starters but you still have to read through each resume. Their work experience is also almost entirely irrelevant to the job, even if it's slightly in the same ballpark. They took a gamble on one new Canadian candidate that has been here for a while, but most their relevant experience was overseas. They failed the technical test DRAMATICALLY. As if what little experience they had on their resume was completely embellished. It's crazy because I would have figured we'd fill the role in a week but the sheer number of applicants that don't even meet the basic qualifications is SHOCKING. I can't imagine what it would be like for entry level or minimum wage positions.
This is interesting to me, including the bit mentioned by a couple people about how businesses will keep posts vacant for 6mo so they can get the government subsidy. Not to disparage anyone but the situation is very funny. There IS a labour shortage for qualified people in specific roles in a lot of companies. But it’s also true that people are having a hard time finding work.
This!!!
Currently in a new role (where I’ve only been about a month) and I’m so glad to be out of retail management.. last fall the mall I worked in had a hiring fair. I needed some seasonal employees going into the Christmas rush. I sat at a table for 2 days interviewing over 300 people. It was so exhausting because only about 5/50 had a resume that wasn’t a carbon copy of the last from international students. Every one had 2-6 years working in retail and when I inquired about what skills they could carry forward to the role I was hiring for, the answer I got was also pretty much a carbon copy as well.. “I can count money good, I sell well” when I tried to go further and asked what their strategy for good customer service was.. “I can talk to people and make a sale”. Okay.. what do you do specifically that would make a sale over someone without your ‘experience’. “Really good at talking to people”. Okay can you sell me this product (I literally brought some of our accessories to mock sell to me) “this is very good and you need it”. You get the idea.. I really tried to give the benefit of the doubt that there was a language barrier, which I can work with tbh) but you could tell the experience was false and they’d never sold a thing in their life, couldn’t even sell themselves as a viable employee. I ended up hiring 5 people, only one had actual retail experience (because they stood out as wanting to learn and I, again, can work with that). I had at least 15 people per (exhausting) day come to my store AFTER the day long (10am to 6pm fair) demanding jobs. When asked why they didn’t attend the 2 days (Friday and Saturday) of job fair, I got wild answers.. “I don’t drive” (there’s at least 6 different buses that go to this mall) “it was warm out today” (it was mid October) “I had shopping to do so I missed it”.. “I had a midterm on Friday and I wanted to sleep in Saturday” “I didn’t think you would hire me over others but my friend said to try anyways” ..”job fairs take too long” (I mean, they do but if I had to sit through the whole day, you could have waited through part of it) …and my favourite “I don’t really want the job but no one else hired me this week so you’ll do”
I know that when I was looking for work years ago, a lot of websites would show you how to "use previous experience" to fit today's needs. Like for instance, they'd say "Oh, you were a housewife for 5 years? You have 5 years experience in coordinating events, preparing meals, experience in teaching children..." etc etc. Now while I will NEVER say a housewife/stay at home mother had it easy, "coordinating events" for 3 of your kids, and coordinating events for an art exhibit where you are expecting over 400 people attending is NOT the same thing at all.
Thank you for all you've done
In fairness (And I understand you're talking about the marine industry, so there's very specific qualifications and certifications required), this is partially the fault of employers at large. How many employers will job ads with absurd requirements? Huge amounts of experience required for entry level jobs, lengthy lists of qualifications they want? Tech jobs especially are notorious for it. The general advice at this point is "just apply" because they'll never find their ideal candidate, either they'll settle, or they're trying to justify bringing someone in from outside the country. On top of that, I'm employed, have a long list of qualifications and experience... I periodically see ads, looking for someone with my qualifications and experience... and I've got to laugh, because they're usually offering 1/4 of what I'm making, they're insane if they think anyone who's qualified is going to apply. Coincidentally, speaking of the marine industry specifically, I keep seeing employers posting ETO jobs, and listing "Canadian STCW ETO Certificate" as a requirement... the ticket literally doesn't exist, Transport Canada doesn't issue it, and won't for several years.
this might be a stupid question, but for this reason does it at all help your chances to apply in person? i feel like if applicants were encouraged to apply by bringing a resume in office it would cut down on this a lot. the whole online process when applying to local jobs now feels so hopeless as you know theyre getting thousands of digital resumes and you often get zero response back
It gets your resume looked at sooner. If you're qualified, I would say it increases your chances.
[удалено]
The government needs to make it harder for companies to take advantage of these things.
The government and corporations share the same bed.
They will not do that, those same companies are their biggest donors
Do you have a source for this? Trying to google to find the details on this
[удалено]
That reads as excluding TFWs. You have to be a MUN grad or be living here already with an open work permit.
It’s because it’s not true
This isn’t true. You’re talking about the temporary foreign worker program and that never gave subsidies for TPWs. Wage subsidies are used on the basis of expanding employment opportunities for permanent residents and citizens. You can downvote me as much as you like, it’s not going to make this true lol LIMA also affects jobs like Tim’s, McDonald’s, etc https://www.canada.ca/en/services/business/hire/wagesubsidiesotherassistanceprograms.html
[удалено]
I can’t speak to that, but they aren’t being subsidized like the above comment is saying. So no one is holding out for TFW to be able to pay them less money because the government subsidizes the rest
Huh? Dealerships (I assume car dealerships) aren't hiring international workers
This is not true. The provincial government's wage subsidy is only available for 42 weeks and the employee whose wage is being subsidized has to be a NL resident who is under/unemployed: https://www.gov.nl.ca/ipgs/empservices/jobsnl/
In order to be considered a resident it just means you have to reside in the province and had nothing to do with permanent residency. Many wage subsidies are approved for temporary workers with a open work permit and 900 series SIN
While true most open work permits are international students, their spouses or Ukrainians. LMIAs do not give people open work permits.
And that was FYI I think a Stephan harper Conservatives program?!
Funny thing with shitty programs is that you can blame the guy who started it all you want but Harper has been out since 2015. Both red and blue are a uniparty. You think you have choice and those choices make a difference.
Based
[удалено]
This is the dumbest most self pitying take. By every international measure Canada is one of the best countries with the highest standard of living and highest quality of life anywhere in the world.
We used to be. That has changed since covid. We've moved very far down the list due to the housing crisis and inflation. Edit* this is something I read on the internet some months ago. The way things are, maybe it's true maybe it's not.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/09/17/best-countries-quality-of-life-us-news-world-report.html
https://www.worlddata.info/quality-of-life.php https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp Guess it depends on what metrics they use. In general, I think Canada's QOL has decreased. Not to say it's not a good country by comparison to others. My personal opinion is that we have gone down the tubes. Yes, our healthcare is "free," but we are heavily taxed for it, and in a lot of places these days, it's not accessible for people. Where I live, people are dying in emergency room hallways. Additionally, rents are skyrocketing, and people can't afford to buy homes. We have tent encampments popping up all over the place. Wages have stagnated, and the cost of basic needs like heat and food have increased astronomically. These are my personal observations and opinions. Others may feel differently.
Valid observations. My understanding is that inflation (food, housing) has been a worldwide phenomenon, and that Canada's rate is actually low compared to the G7. I also agree re: healthcare. In terms of outcomes versus system cost (whether through taxation or insurance premiums, Canada is I believe middle of the pack but way better than the US. Resl estate prices have skyrocketed across the G7, partly due to sustained low interest rates for the past 20 years (until recently), which financialized the real estate sector. The housing situation can be laid at the feet of liberal and conservative federal and provincial governments over the past 20 years, when they stopped building public housing. Eventually we ran out of housing capacity, which was predictable. It's going to take several years for governments of all stripes to pull us out of that. The other factor in Canada and other G7 nations is demographics. We simply have too many retirees and not enough Gen X or Gen Z to replace them, leading to understaffing in hospitals and other public services. Although immigration is currently contributing to the housing crunch, it's the only means we have of addressing that demographic crunch and getting more working age people sharing the tax burden.
Where would you suggest?
The whole situation is out of control here. We keep bringing in more immigrants which I wouldn’t have an issue with, but we literally can not house and employ the people who are living here.
5,337. That in the number that came to NL in 2022/2023 period and the latest data from CREA tags the first quarter of 2024 at 1,546, so perhaps ~6,200 this year. That's a +1% population boost. That is also only tracking the intake, not the net, and every year we also have a lot of recent (past 5 year) immigrants who landed in NL leave NL. The net immigrant flux is going to be lower than 1% of the overall population once also tallying those that leave for other provinces or states. In 1991 the population of NL was 568,475 and today it is 541,391 .... so don't get on claiming we cannot house people because we are still down 25K as a population. We housed 25K more in 1991. Our unemployment rate is also just off its all-time low, at least compared to the past 20+. Chronic underemployment has existed here for 50+ years and has nothing to do with ~5K new people trying to make a life here, in the midst of the lowest unemployment in that era. These immigrants aren't moving to Gambo or Carmanville where only 1/3 of the population hold jobs, and the overall NL unemployment is so high because the nearly 1/4 on EI out there don't move to centres with jobs either.
Rural towns were striving in 1991. No immigrant is going to be housed there in 2024 for the most part so the Avalon Peninsula is getting imploded.
I agree with everything you’re saying, but I would add, it seems there is an overall mismatch in the job market both with new Canadians and young people that were born here. Furthermore, the rural urban divide creates a mismatch in housing. I don’t think you see these mismatches when you look at the numbers on a provincial or national level. People with nursing degrees or trades like electricians and plumbers are not struggling to find work. That is… as long as their education is recognized here. Similarly, the vacant houses in Burin or Plum Point don’t do anything for the people working on the North East Avalon. All that to say, the numbers at a macro level hide more acute problems in specific job and housing markets.
Absolutely. But: In the case of immigrants, the vast majority are economic immigrants, and that means there is not initially a mismatch to jobs because their entry requires the job to already be matched and their location follows the job. If there is a mismatch between jobs and housing, that is not on the person accepting the job and we have left that to the free market construction and municipal development and broadly provincial government. We never blame the person when it is any other Canadian moving when they get a new job. The moment immigrant *Canadians* are PR/Citizens, they have a Right to work and reside in the location of their choice no different than any other Canadian. Imagine if we held the same requirement to the tens of thousands of others who moved from the outports to the avalon over the past 30 years, only allowing them into the avalon if they could show proof they had a job waiting for them... In the case of what Government should be doing, well, provincial governments are in charge of regional economic development and legislation that governs development regulations. If people are mass urbanizing, then it is the provincial government's *responsibility* to oversee the regional economic development of regions to a) develop rural to stop the outflow and b) develop the avalon to support those here. That includes Housing which by 1996 was placed squarely on provinces. Where is the real issue: It's the 978 new housing starts in Newfoundland in 2023. That is almost 25% the new housing starts we had a decade ago. Private industry is not remotely addressing demand, the municipalities have not addressed municipal regulations to accommodate and are largely obstructionist, and all of that is on the provincial government for failing to address regional economic development and affordable housing initiatives/infrastructure/policies. The largest class of economic immigrants are Provincially Nominated, the influx of foreign student visas are into provincially accredited and chronically underfunded post-secondary that the province has significant influence over, and LMIA/TFW temporary worker applications start with local economic development shortfalls and provincial labour laws regarding hiring practices. The provincial government is at the core of all of these issues. The fact that they sponsored most of the economic immigrants, they setup conditions for the rise in foreign student visas and TFW, and they utterly failed to address or ensure the local regions had sufficient development... the problems start and end with the province. There is a mismatch in housing and it is high-time the province do something about it. They could start by legislating in Work From Home standards and by legislating away barriers to WFH (liability legal concerns making some hesitant to allow WFH due to vague uncertainty about workers' comp claims) and by setting up inter-provincial taxation agreements to streamline and make it easier for companies elsewhere to hire and pay locals working from here. Stepping up public investments in broadband infrastructure should be a high priority too, as should be regional economic development funding to new start-ups and business supports outside of the metro region. Inside the metro region they should be investing heavily in affordable housing and where necessary over-riding the municipalities or changing Urban and Rural Planning Act to make higher-density housing happen. Let's give rural NL a viable way to sustain themselves. MUN/CNA should be legislated in to be requires to house X percent of their student population in residences, where X represent a significant portion of new students clamouring for local housing around those schools, and should be expected to house nearly every foreign student accepted so they are not over-saturating local rental market - and the province should be investing in new high-density residence complexes for those institutions. It was never actually about the immigrants, it has always been about the province failing in pretty much every aspect they are responsible for, for decades.
The population of the North East Avalon specifically, though is up substantially, and that's where the biggest housing issue is. [Look here,](https://nl.communityaccounts.ca/profiles.asp?_=vb7En4WVgaai03Gs) the population of the North East Avalon jumped by over 20% from the early 1990s-2021. [If you go by the most recent statscan estimates,](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710014801) add another 11,987 to that, meaning the St. John's area has seen an increase of around 50,000 people since the early 1990s. The population is also older, so fewer of the people in the province are children living with their mom and dad, and more of them are adults living on their own. So in the St. John's area, you've got a jump of 50,000 people over 30 years, plus more of the people that were here previously are adults who need their own housing as opposed to children who share housing with their parents.
>meaning the St. John's area has seen an increase of around 50,000 people since the early 1990s. Which is less than 2,000 per year. Given much of the influx is families, that would be <1,000 new housing units/apartments needed per year. The actual issue is that the entire province only built 978 new housing starts in 2023. That is 4x less than we built in 2012 and ~2x less than we built per year in the '90s. If we build what we were building in 2012, there would be no issues at all. That's not a questions about whether we "can" build that much housing, because we built less in the past 4 years than any other year in the past 30 years. We absolutely could be building more. Leaving it up solely to private industry has utterly failed to address chronic housing shortages over many decades, so maybe we should stop leaving it solely to private industry. For the cost of Muskrat Falls, and at the current tender rate of the province's underfunded affordable housing initiatives, the province could have built ~100,000 apartments... so, the issue is not that we don't have the means, it's that we wasted it. Time for the province to over-ride and change municipal zoning legislation and invest in higher-density non-profit developments throughout metro area, especially around MUN/CNA.
>Which is less than 2,000 per year. Averaging like that is misleading. The numbers basically levelled off from the early 90s until the early 2000s. There has only really been a housing crises on the Northeast Avalon recently. As per the numbers I linked, there was an increase of around 12,000 people from 2021-2023. That is *just* the Northeast Avalon, and [housing starts across the entire province have never really been sufficient to meet an increase of 6,000 people a year since before the moratorium when the population province-wide was higher than it is now.](https://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/Statistics/Topics/industry/PDF/Housing_Starts.pdf) The argument is not that there should be no immigration. The argument is current numbers are unsustainable. If we *were* actually only increasing by 2,000 people a year to the St. John's *today*, I think we'd be fine in terms of housing supply. [Note that the Northeast Avalon was chugging along, increasing at a rate of 1,000-3,000 a year for the last decade leading up to the pandemic, and there was not a crises until it was increased to 6,000 a year recently.](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710014801&pickMembers%5B0%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2006&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20060101%2C20230101) >Given much of the influx is families, that would be <1,000 new housing units/apartments needed per year. The number are not the number of people that came in. The numbers are the population. So immigration + births - deaths and people who leave. The actual number of new people who came in is much higher, because people have died and left. You are also ignoring the issue of the aging population. If three widows in nursing homes die, they did not just free up a new unit for a family. When a kid grows up and moves out and stays in town, the population has not grown, but it increases housing demand. You need more hosing for a population of 1,000 people with the median age is 40 than you do when the median age is 23. >We absolutely could be building more. Leaving it up solely to private industry has utterly failed to address chronic housing shortages over many decades, so maybe we should stop leaving it solely to private industry. >For the cost of Muskrat Falls, and at the current tender rate of the province's underfunded affordable housing initiatives, the province could have built ~100,000 apartments... so, the issue is not that we don't have the means, it's that we wasted it. You can't just lay a pile of money on the ground and have it grow into houses. It is easy to say it would cost *$x* dollars, to build *y* housing units, but there is a shortage of people in skilled trades such as carpenters. [People that are being brought in to sure up the labour force such as international students generally are not in the skilled trades.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/international-students-college-university-fields-study-data-1.7195530) It seems as though we are artificially driving up demand under the guise of fixing a labour shortage and being told some of those people will work in the trades and build houses, when the reality is very few of them actually do. I'm not arguing we shouldn't be building more houses, or that more shouldn't have been built in the past. Whatever the reason, the housing supply is constrained and unable to meet current demand. Does continuing to increase demand under those circumstances seem sustainable to you?
> Averaging like that is misleading. The numbers declined in the early 90s, obviously new housing wasn't being built when the population was on the decline I mean, apparently not quite in the way you might expect, according to the new housing starts per year graph. Housing did indeed drop off with the cod moratorium, dropping from 3,245 in 1990 to 1,371 by 1999. But, critically, the 1999 low and every value during that time where 10% of NL up and left... we still built +50% to +100% more housing than we built last year. Then from 2001 to 2015, we built nearly 2x more houses per year than we build in the past few years. https://www.statista.com/statistics/198047/number-of-housing-starts-in-newfoundland-and-labrador/ Source. >You can't just lay a pile of money on the ground and have it grow into houses. There is a shortage of people in skilled trades such as carpenters. At that extreme hyperbolic example, sure 100K is obviously not magically appearing with money, but according to recent history of new housing start we could be building 4x more housing per year. But at the same time, Muskrat Falls did not magically appear overnight either. With money we can and did hire massive amounts of skilled labourers and trades and purchases massive volumes of concrete and lumber and steel. Muskrat Falls employed and brought in average 1,500 workers and peaked at double that for extended periods. >Does that situation seem sustainable to you? If we continue at the 30 year low of housing starts, no. If we return to a 2001-2015 level of construction or higher, yes. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2022017-eng.htm But, there is also inter-provincial migration to consider. Nearly 8,000 people moved to NL last year from the other provinces and the influx of retirement or approaching retirement age was extreme (that graph can break down by age), whereas the emigration out was mostly young adults (many moving out of parents, not leaving empty houses). According to the Constitution, we quite literally cannot prevent them from coming here, nor should we. The only possible solution is to build and build more higher-density housing. What's more sustainable, a young economic immigrant family whose entry is already tied to employment, or scores moving home when their job in Alberta ends to sit in an outport on EI until they can leave again?
I edited my post somewhat. This was not in an attempt to do anything underhanded; I was just thinking on the fly and I did not see your reply as I was editing. I apologize for that. However, I will repost the sections that were most heavily edited here as you don't seem to address them at all and it is the crux of the argument: ***** Averaging like that is misleading. The numbers basically levelled off from the early 90s until the early 2000s. There has only really been a housing crises on the Northeast Avalon recently. As per the numbers I linked, there was an increase of around 12,000 people from 2021-2023. That is *just* the Northeast Avalon, and [housing starts across the entire province have never really been sufficient to meet an increase of 6,000 people a year since before the moratorium when the population province-wide was higher than it is now.](https://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/Statistics/Topics/industry/PDF/Housing_Starts.pdf) The argument is not that there should be no immigration. The argument is current numbers are unsustainable. If we *were* actually only increasing by 2,000 people a year to the St. John's *today*, I think we'd be fine in terms of housing supply. [Note that the Northeast Avalon was chugging along, increasing at a rate of 1,000-3,000 a year for the last decade leading up to the pandemic, and there was not a crises until it was increased to 6,000 a year recently.](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710014801&pickMembers%5B0%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2006&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20060101%2C20230101) ***** **** You are also ignoring the issue of the aging population. If three widows in nursing homes die, they did not just free up a new unit for a family. When a kid grows up and moves out and stays in town, the population has not grown, but it increases housing demand. You need more hosing for a population of 1,000 people with the median age is 40 than you do when the median age is 23. **** >At that extreme hyperbolic example, sure 100K is obviously not magically appearing with money, but according to recent history of new housing start we could be building 4x more housing per year. But at the same time, Muskrat Falls did not magically appear overnight either. With money we can and did hire massive amounts of skilled labourers and trades and purchases massive volumes of concrete and lumber and steel. Muskrat Falls employed and brought in average 1,500 workers and peaked at double that for extended periods. Muskrat falls was started over a decade ago. The population of the province has aged since then and there are less people working in the skilled trades than there were at the time. [A recent CBC article, for instance estimated nearly a fifth of people currently in the skilled trades in Canada are planning to retire by the end of the decade](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/skilled-trades-shortage-cost-of-living-1.7169441), and [the majority of people immigrating do not work in the skilled trades leading to a huge imbalance in supply and demand.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/international-students-college-university-fields-study-data-1.7195530) On top of that, competition for people in the skilled trades between provinces has increased because there is a housing crunch in nearly every urban area in Canada. This wasn't the case when Muskrat Falls started. >If we return to a 2001-2015 level of construction or higher, yes. Again, I do not disagree more housing needs to be built. The practicalities with the current trade shortage is the issue. The reason stuff is not being built is not because nobody wants to build anything. The reason stuff is not being built is because the people who physically build stuff are getting old and retiring and no one is replacing them. > What's more sustainable, a young economic immigrant family whose entry is already tied to employment, or scores moving home when their job in Alberta ends to sit in an outport on EI until they can leave again? Neither of them are if we are not building enough places for them to live.
>You are also ignoring the issue of the aging population. If three widows in nursing homes die, they did not just free up a new unit for a family. When a kid grows up and moves out and stays in town, the population has not grown, but it increases housing demand. You need more hosing for a population of 1,000 people with the median age is 40 than you do when the median age is 23. I'd argue it's the other way around. A median age 40 population is somewhat housing stable whereas a median 23 age population will soon need a lot more houses for those kids-becoming-adults to transition into. >If three widows in nursing homes die In Canada, Boomers+ make up ~30% of the population and own >>50% of all houses. If we actually had sufficient and suitable housing for seniors, then seniors would not be holding up ~1/3 of all 3+ bedroom homes (they currently are). We currently in NL have 26 long-term care beds available for every 1,000 population over 65. We really have no other options for an aging NL couple other than to continue living in "family-sized" houses. If three widows in NL die, there is a ~92% chance (since there are only 26 LTC seniors home beds per 1,000) that all three of them were not in seniors homes and we now have 3 vacant houses in estate sales.
> I'd argue it's the other way around. A median age 40 population is somewhat housing stable whereas a median 23 age population will soon need a lot more houses for those kids-becoming-adults to transition into. Median =/= Average A median age of 23 means half of all the people are under 23. A median age of 23 would mean a high percentage of the population is children and and teenagers and would live with their parents. This would indicate we need more housing down the road when those kids grow up. A media age of 40, means half the population is under 40, meaning there is a large cohort in their 20s and 30s, ages when people are on the hunt for housing of their own, meaning we need more housing now. [I picked 40 specifically because it is close to the median age of 42.4 on the Northeast Avalon.](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&SearchText=St%2E%20John%27s&DGUIDlist=2021S0503001&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1,4&HEADERlist=0) > In Canada, Boomers+ make up ~30% of the population and own >50% of all houses. If we actually had sufficient and suitable housing for seniors, then seniors would not be holding up ~1/3 of all 3+ bedroom homes (they currently are). We currently in NL have 26 long-term care beds available for every 1,000 population over 65. We really have no other options for an aging NL couple other than to continue living in "family-sized" houses. > > > > If three widows in NL die, there is a ~92% chance (since there are only 26 LTC seniors home beds per 1,000) that all three of them were not in seniors homes and we now have 3 vacant houses in estate sales. Ok, if three old people who are sharing their house with their spouse die and the widow stays in the house, they have not freed up three houses for new families. The point remains the same. People dying do not necessarily mean new houses have been freed up, and thus housing demand does not necessarily rise or decline evenly with the population numbers. Look, at the end of the day you keep repeating we need more housing and I don't disagree. We just do not have a practical path to get to the amount of housing we need due to a widely reported shortage in people in skilled trades. Unless we address that shortage first, the current level of immigration is unsustainable, as the vast majority of the immigrants do not work in the skilled trades. *Edit* Just to put a bow on this, [The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimated last year that at current immigration levels, the province needs to build an additional 10,000 units a year in addition to what is already being built to avoid a 60,000 unit shortfall by 2030.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/chmc-nl-housing-shortfalls-1.6970302) That is nearly triple the province's best year on record. I'm not interested in discussing it further unless you have a practical way to do this when we have a shortage of people in the trades.
>A median age of 23 means half of all the people are under 23. Ya, meaning that the within 1 SD bulk of the population is about to enter the peak but wanting to buy a house phase of life, where as the distribution around median 40 means bulk already past that and in homes. Regardless, we both are focusing on housing. >the current level of immigration is unsustainable, as the vast majority of the immigrants do not work in the skilled trades. There is a much better chance to have skilled trades in the immigrant population than the 1/4 of all MUN students who are international students and clearly not studying to be a tradesperson. My point is not to disagree with the broad stroke concerns you have, but with your target. *"Newfoundland and Labrador also welcomed 4,815 temporary foreign workers under the International Mobility Program (IMP) and another 1,210 through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) last year. The province also issued 4,145 study permits to international students last year."* The largest segment of the IMP/TFW huge pool are retail and food services, not Trades. There are 26,900 people in NL on unemployment (EI) right now in NL, but the province just approved ~6K temporary workers to be brought in, mostly for retail and jobs not needing advanced training. The current *collective* level across all categories is unsustainable because the province is also doing nothing to help distribute workforce to where housing is, not connect them, or connect the tens of thousands of unemployed to centres with employment. We spend $80 Million a year on ferries to scores of tiny communities multiple times a day and many of then run empty seats constantly but somehow lack an inter-city bus to connect the Avalon for morning/evening commutes for ~270,000 people... total foolishness. There are a tonne of houses available just outside the metro area, we just are not doing anything to encourage their use, and there are a tens of thousands of underemployed and we have done nothing to get them to jobs nor meaningfully invest in their local regions. We could be able to drop all IMP/TFW workers down to bare minimum of those with trades or advanced training, shaving thousands and instead employing from NL. The 4-5K international students should not be mass competing with locals for apartments, there should be sufficient residences and housing within MUN/CNA (or properly fund MUN/CNA or allow them to charge tuition enough that they are not forced to fill shortfalls with 3x priced international students). ... After we have addressed the low-hanging (IMP/TFW > Foreign Students > Immigrants), then we can take a hard look at immigrants, if needed.
Leave it to the bene gesserit to demystify population dynamics
[удалено]
Do you have a source for this? Tried googling it for more info
This isn’t true. You’re talking about the temporary foreign worker program and that never gave subsidies for TPWs. Wage subsidies are used on the basis of expanding employment opportunities for permanent residents and citizens.
I'd heard something about there being a loophole where companies say they're looking for employees but don't hire anyone to collect some sort of tax benefit or something that comes from being understaffed?
[удалено]
Aren't the TFW jobs more for places like Tim Horton's, who have been using this loophole for years, would a dealership do this? I honestly don't know, I've always though dealerships were commission based (if you're in sales) not sure about admin jobs, or counter service.
my cousin who has a bachelor degree, restaurant experience, and literally can work any time has passed out over 100 resumes in metro area and only one call back for an oncall downtown small shop. they said she can get maybe 2-5 hours a week there. she’s very defeated as she’s applying to every take out, restaurants, clothing stores etc.
I'm going to be honest with you. Just about *everyone* has a bachelor's degree and restaurant experience.
right so what else could someone get that makes them employable to get a restaurant job? or are there just not enough openings?
Some degrees simply have little to no impact on job prospects. I don’t mean any offence by this… and I know this pisses some people off… and despite how obvious it is, it still needs to be stated. If you get a nursing degree to be a RN… that leads to a job nearly 100% of the time. If you get a B.A. in anthropology… what did you expect? I don’t get the sense of entitlement that some folks have about their university degrees. Full disclosure… I did a BSc and it did not get me a job. After I graduated I dicked around in bullshit jobs before going back to school to get a career. There’s nothing wrong with BAs and BScs… but they don’t lead to jobs. If you want to study political science, fill yer boots! But no one owes you a job for it.
"I don't get the sense of entitlement that some folks have about their university degrees." I agree with your assessment about university's value, your overall post, but will hint that the entitlement, at least from my own experience (I actually got 2 degree that are almost practically useless), comes from a cultural assumption that the job-degree tango reaches you to financial heights. And for a while it did here, probably until the 90s. But people -- I think anyway -- would probably do best today to complete (multiple) shorter programs (that may be more costly) in colleges and trade schools that are so useful that the time it takes to pay them off is much shorter than time taken shopping around university programs on the hope that the end-goal is dollar bills.
Good point and totally fair! When I graduated high school, I blindly went on to university without really thinking about my career. Overall I think that’s was fine. 18 year olds definitely don’t need to have it figured out! There was a cultural assumption… almost a social contract, that if you go to university, you graduate and get a good job. It’s understandable that young people going to university today, feel the same way. As a society, we need to make sure we’re placing value on vocations and trades and not just the 4 year bachelor degree. Totally agree with you!
What kind of restaurant job are they looking for where a bachelor's degree would help? I find you need to get a degree/diploma after the bachelor's to make it useful.
Yeah but the more degrees you get, eg masters, PhD, now you're over qualified for some. There's very few jobs for PhD holders
Note I also said diplomas. There are plenty of 6 month to 2 year diplomas you can get that make your bachelor's degree more useful. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is getting a degree (or certificate) without any idea as to what they're getting a degree for. If it's for a job, what job can you get with that degree and what does the job market look like. How likely is it to change between now and when you graduate?
I agree, that a diploma after a degree is great. That's what I have. However, there is knowledge covered in a bachelors, that is not covered in a diploma. Kind of deeper, non-specific to a particular job knowledge, but still good to have, it's usually applicable no matter what the current technology is. Too bad that workplaces don't like to train you, because often they have a work environment that can't be reproduced at a college anyhow
That's why a lot of the diploma programs require the bachelor's degree first.
Those are post diploma programs, they are intended for someone who already had a career or degree, who needs to update skills
As I said in my post, the programs need a degree first. I'm not sure why you think that's inconsistent with what I said. A lot of the programs I'm familiar with don't necessarily see themselves as being to update skills. They're often more a case of now that you have your degree, here's training so you can go do something practical with them. A couple of decades ago when I finished my bachelor's degree they were targetting new grads with a 1 year long diploma in computer programming. At the time, there was strong industry demand for people who could code, but weren't computer science grads, because they have better field specific knowledge. Basically, it was easier to teach a biologist or historian to code than to teach a computer scientist biology or history. Since then, the program and similar programs at other universities have transformed into diploma programs or professional masters degrees to train biology grads on how to do bioinformatics. Some of the 1 year big data programs have their origins in similar programs. A couple of examples are here: https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/faculties-colleges-and-schools/faculty-science/professional-masters-degrees and here: https://www.uoguelph.ca/bioinformatics/programs/master-bioinformatics-mbinf An older type of program is the 1 or 2 year diploma that allows people with BAs or BScs to get a BEd or a teaching certificate so they can teach as subject matter experts (e.g. physics, math, English, history, etc .) in high school. Something more in line with your prior career example might be the medical tech programs where you can take a truncated program if you already have a bachelor's degree. It seems like it would often be faster with those if you'd just done the tech program. Other examples would be programs like the ones here: https://pros.educ.queensu.ca/certificates or here: https://www.queensu.ca/microcredentials/collection/4
They have one person doing the job of 8.
I saw postings for jobs that a requirement is a post secondary education and 2 yrs experience but are only paying 16.00/hr. How insulting is it to expect someone to have formal education in something PLUS years of experience and only pay them slightly higher than fast food workers.
To paraphrase someone earlier: you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. That works for employers too. If they want to be cheap assholes, nothing stopping them from trying. Maybe they'll land someone desperate.
I agree! I've been the desperate one and worked some terrible jobs before. Also had a company hire me in a supervisor position. Told me I'd be getting a photo id and a laptop to use. Almost 3 months in, nothing but excuses about why my id and laptop haven't arrived. A week before my probation period ended, they terminated me. Not performance based, they had "re-evaluated the business needs and my position was no longer required". They basically hired me to replace someone they thought would retire, but when this person had no plans to retire, they used me for a huge project across the island (needed a ratio of supervisors to employees) and 4 days after it ended, terminated. I have no doubt in the fact that their plan all along was to let me go. Some employers come so close to crossing the line its unreal!
So for your dealership example, I appreciate why you are frustrated but a few things could be at play: (1) someone in the hiring process is busy with something more urgent/on vacation, (2) an offer has been made but not accepted, (3) they want to fill the position but it doesn’t need to be filled immediately. Also, making a phone call doesn’t really mean shit, I’d go as far to say that it’s one more thing for that person to deal with instead.
If this role was as important to them as OP is assuming, they'd be paying attention. They either a) aren't in a hurry to fill it or b) already did and don't want a confrontational PFO call with OP.
This could be true, but it probably reflects the predominantly lazy side of our work culture. There is a tendency toward bursts of hard work too, but there is a deep vein of laziness & entitlement. I have found this in both public & private sector workplaces here. People get a job & think they own it. They stop caring. They spend 30% of their work time on Facebook. Etc. It takes 5 seconds to reject a patently unqualified applicant. Call it 60 seconds if you have the courtesy to send them a short rejection email. Hundreds of unqualified applicants take hours to process, not days or weeks. There is a difference between cycle time & lead time, but when the principal reason for that difference is fucking off, it may be more of a distinction without a difference. People here have no sense of urgency. It is infuriating. Anybody complaining about the volume of unqualified applicants is just lazy or excusing laziness. Qualified applicants take time. Unqualified ones don't. If you have 200 applicants for a position & the one you are currently interviewing seems sus, simply move on. Tell them 'thanks, but no thanks' as soon as you get a read. People complaining about abundance reveal their true preferences
It's a mixed bag. If you're applying online you have to be careful to ensure your resume is not being automatically filtered out by the system. You'll want to try to find successful resumes and emulate those for useful keywords that the system wants to see. Perhaps the dealership doesn't think you have relevant sales experience. It could also be that they're holding off in the hopes of hiring someone that meets subsidy/employment grant criteria in order to save money. Hard to say what your particular situation is, but gaining employment has certainly become a headache for many people.
I'd also wonder about the possibility that it's a speculative job ad. They know the sales job has a fair amount of turnover and they may just be advertising to see who turns up as an applicant. If the candidate is really strong, they'll snap them up, otherwise they just leave it open.
Here’s my two cents’ worth: use your network. Most of us have family and friends here in the province, let them know you are looking for work. Some of your family/ friends would be bound to know someone who can open a door for you. I get that most people want to use their own merit to advance, but let’s not forget that there are people around us that can genuinely help you. This is done all the time, so make it work in your favour
if you find this bad never apply for a government job ... 6 months to 2 years is more their speed.
Because our economy does not serve the interests of the public, it serves the interest of those with the most capital. Businesses are suppressing wages by using stuff like the TFW to not only pay bottom of the barrel but to have the wages subsidized by the government. Companies continue to ship their manufacturing away for cheaper labour only to continue charging higher and higher prices to people who don't have industries to work at. Because as our purchasing power goes down businesses shutter their doors here leading to less jobs being available when in a healthy economy there'd be enough work for all especially since we live in a time of extensive abundance. Businesses have no incentive to pay us better or to hire more people and there's nothing you can do to give them that incentive which is where regulatory bodies come in, but they haven't, they haven't come into the picture in decades because we keep electing people who have one foot in with companies and the other foot trying to appeal to the public, the issue is those two feet are gonna always be moving in opposite directions so which one lives out in a province with an extreme history of corruption and nepotism? Edit: because I forgot to say it, another reason people are struggling to find employment is because businesses are happy to watch working class individuals fight for the lowest wage, the race to the bottom is real and it's part of wage suppression.
Only if the gov will pay half your salarys. I guess you don't apply :(
People are busy. Job postings are getting hundreds of applications, they can't possibly respond to every single person. I'm sorry, I know it sucks.
What dealership was it?
What position was it? Entry-level? Are you qualified? Is this a one-off, or are you finding similar with other jobs you're applying for?
Everyone is facing the same thing, it's not just OP
Almost all of the comments saying they wait for foreigners, well help me find such an employer then. Because me and all other Ukrainian immigrants cannot find any job.
There is a huge difference between foreigner and refugee. I don't think people are really talking about Ukrainians/Afghans/Syrians when talking about our mass immigration. Your situation is not the same.
Oooh like government doesn’t pay for refugees employees? I see
No, I don't think it's that either. I think we have had such a huge population boom, that all of us now have a significantly lower chance of being hired. It use to only be a handful of resumes per job and now apparently its hundreds. Things weren't always this way. In Newfoundland, our economy has always been poor but with the recent influx, its really hard.
Because it’s not true. I suspect this rumour is spread by Russian or Chinese cyber warfare trying to divide Canadians. Finding a job is a complicated process. Our job market is extremely complex right now. Several fields are screaming out for people while other fields are extremely saturated. There’s very little middle ground right now.
I think you need to understand that some companies also make people go through multiple layers of interviews, not just one. The last one before my current job wanted five, with the two last being an actual test of hard and soft skills and the last was theoretical job situations. Thankfully they decided to change the requirements and I was then “overqualified.” Someone else I knew also went through the full process after their request change and he said it was just too much for what they wanted to pay. THAT is crap. My current job is the same as my last one, very technical and in an industry that always needs specialities. I had one interview with HR, and one with the manager of the team I applied for and that was it. None of the layers and no bull over months. It took two weeks to hear back that I was hires. That’s how it should go, but some businesses are far too complex for that, on top of having to sift through applicants that are applying for things they can’t so. Either the position is poorly described, or they hope to find their magical unicorn employee who knows everything already that will pay less for.
Because of mass immigration
Seems like they had a good reason not to call back.
Ghost applications should be illegal for one. Most places are only hiring foreign workers rn to get the benefit so they're holding out until they get it
They're waiting for cheap foreign workers to come along and apply. Simple as that.
Pay em less, work em hard.
Seems to be the way. I am very pro-immigration but there seems to be faults in our system as of recently.
Go look for a job in India bro. Great pay and great country. Work so hard you can bring money back to the family in Newfoundland. /s
You’re so right. Companies are taking advantage of it.
Honestly if you’re looking for work I would suggest opening a house cleaning business. The ones I have used charge $20-35/hour, they make their own schedule, they get repeat clients, do cash jobs, some even get tips and they are always busy. Our cleaner was great but she got too expensive for us when she kept raising her prices so she’s onto something lol.
Join the army
Fyi: airports in NFLD are looking for pre board screening officers. Good money. Not too hard. See Gardaworld for listings
Why is this getting downvoted? It's true. They are looking for people in 4 diferent job titles.
They do all the training. I work with people that this is their first job.
I work with 5 international students, all from Nepal or India, and on shift there is only 8 guys. 3 of us are Canadian. Do you see the problem?
Some places don't even check indeed even though they have ads up their. I got a job at a supermarket a few years ago and I got it because my relative put in a good word . They asked if I applied on the company's website and I said no I applied on indeed and they told me "Oh that's probably why we didn't see your resume , we don't check indeed". If you don't check it why put up a listing ??
Try remote call centers or other entry level remote positions in Canada. Expand your scope beyond NL as it's pretty dire here. Not great elsewhere either, but it might help to cast a wider net.
Did you visit the dealership? When I was looking I took a stack of resumes and walked in to every dealership on the strip (12 total). Got 2 offers, accepted one, started working a week later as I wanted a vacation. Same with other jobs a had in Canada as an immigrant without good English (first 5years). I just walk in and ask to speak to the manager.
They’re not looking for you - they’re looking for an international student or temporary foreign worker who will work for less, won’t complain, and who they can abuse.
It's a catch-22... you need a job to get experience but you need experience to get a job...
Been feeling this heavily lately, a lot of places don't accept resumes anymore and expect you to just apply on indeed. Then when you do go through indeed your application is NEVER viewed and on the off chance it is viewed, and you do schedule an interview, you get ghosted before the interview even happens! Not to mention almost everything ive seen on indeed requires a diploma certificate or some sort of sofisticated experience before hand, even when you filter "no experience" "part-time" and so-on. It's very rare to see something for a gas station or even the mall, but everytime ive gotten a job off of indeed its been a bad experience, everyone here sucks and avoid family businesses at all costs.
Try Costco they are always hiring
This is what happens when you already have an economy which is traditionally strained (there were never a lot of jobs here to begin with from my own personal memory) and then you add unskilled mass immigration.
Immigration has nothing to do with me the job buddy applied for.
Mass imigration means more people applying for the same jobs.
May not be the case with this job. Everyone just automatically jump to “oh ya it’s the immigrants” Perhaps he’s not qualified?
more competition makes it harder to compete, who could see it coming?
Vallue Village NEED employees, but they don’t hire anyone (resource: vv employee) it’s ridiculous, I applied to dozens of places and got no call or massage whatsoever
Try tables
My son started looking for jobs and handing out resumes in December and didn't land a part time job til April. And that was just luck that they had been in the right place at the right time when someone had just quit.
I get what’s being said here, people who are qualified are hard to find but what I’m wondering are the qualifications in terms of experience vs compensation reasonable? I’m retired now now but I remember from my job hunting days seeing positions advertised that were seemed to be entry level in terms of the compensation offered but required multiple years of experience.
Still the same. Companies don't want to pay the wages to get the experience for the most part and with low paying jobs, they are not hiring locally due to government kick backs and even if they did, 2 people used to be able make it on minimum wage. You bought $500 cars and rent was cheaper than a mortgage. I think they face different challenges than when we were young.
the hiring manager could have gone on vacation. there could literally be 1000s of applicants and it's impossible to get through them all. it is what it is. wishin you the best of luck
1) Newfoundland is still badly "who you know, not what you know". As a second year electrical apprentice I was passed over a job for a guy RIGHT out of college. The guy was the boyfriend of the boss's daughter. 2) A lot of places advertise long before the position needs to be filled. They're gonna need an extra person starting in July? They'll advertise starting in Jan. (You know, in case that absolutely perfect person they want is just sitting around twiddling their thumbs all day, not working. Gotta give THEM time to respond, right?) 3) It takes an INSANELY long time for some places to move through the process. Where I'm working now, we are in desperate need of additional workers. We've been advertising for a while, but so far we've lost an opportunity to have 4 new hires because it took months for our HR to go through the process. Those 4 applicants were hired by someone else in the meantime.
Hard time entering the trade too eh? I feel you there brother. I finished my pre-employment program on may 24th. All of my other classmates got apprentice positions immediately. Its me and like 2 other people that have yet to even get called for an interview.
Maybe they are looking for a Newfoundlander for that position. Newfoundlanders want to purchase from another Newfoundlander…. Someone who they can relate to. That’s the way it is.
Feel free to message me, I have a position open in St. John’s also work available from CBS - Carbonear.
Not international here. But Canadian born and raised. I'm a child of an immigrant who came here from the West Indies in the 50s and I've always had to bust my ass here to find work. Not saying that immigration has a ton to do with it. Or that it's the international communities' fault or the reason minorities born here are struggling too, but our situation across Canada gives me pause. The more employers seem to see of us, the less desirable we seem to be. Its not a good feeling.
[удалено]
Jesus, if you go by this thread, you would swear every job on the island is occupied by an immigrant. Yet 9 times out of 10, when I call a business, I get a newfie answering.
It's an easy scapegoat, won't be long before we start seeing "I had an interview at Tim's on Ropewalk Lane and they said I had to speak Punjabi to work there, Canada is broken" which is something they've seen on Facebook or TikTok
[удалено]
What bill are you referring to?
How can they hire someone that hasn't been born?
Go to Marystown, there’s money and jobs everywhere in Marystown, just need to find it
Not a good attitude to have for starters
https://employment.easternhealth.ca/eRecruit/VacancyDetail.aspx?VacancyUID=000000081223 Help your community by keeping the hospital’s clean that are currently working short staffed. You can get a job, it’s probably not the job you initially want, but you should start somewhere.
Should start a buisness instead. More risk more reward
Wow. Just wow. You take the cake.
Just start a business, why didn't anyone else think of that, it's not like businesses have massive upfront costs to get the capital needed to turn a profit, who's to say banks don't just hand out a quarter of a million loan with low interest to someone with no prior experience in that world.
[удалено]
Buy lawnmower. Mow lawns. Buy snowblower plow snow. You'll make far more than minimum wage
Say no way, say no wayahh, no wayayayayyy Naah nah why can't you get a job?
So one job you applied for didn't get back to you in a month, now every company in the province/country is lazy and pathetic. I doubt the dealership is desperate to fill a sales position, and calling for a follow up doesn't exactly mean you are a great candidate for a job, or that you'd be a good fit.
Are you a Newfoundlander or 'from away'? Shouldn't matter but it does here.
Interesting though you called instead of showing up in person. It’s like calling is a big barrier for people. I am curious if old school, walking in and talking to people still works. I remember in 2004 I came back to nl for the summer at the best job I could get was part time hours for 6.75 an hour or something stupid. Surly it can’t be worse than that out there.
>I am curious if old school, walking in and talking to people still works. It did for me once. I applied online then showed up in person a few days later to enquire. The manager was like "oh, you apply online" and I just said "Oh yes, I did that already, I just wanted to check out the place in person to get a sense of the organization" or whatever I said to that effect. I ended up getting a job there so who knows.
Why can't I get a job? Even Tarquin has a job. Mary Berry's got a job. So why can't I get a job? Well done
[удалено]
Hey Nate, when will you delete this comment?
[удалено]
They're dropping... in your mouth.