Budget ‘09

Details of the proposed federal budget  were announced yesterday and all those who seek labour market information should have been paying attention.
You can see all of the details here but I want to focus on a couple of areas that will be of interest if you work in education, construction or transportation.
$1.5 billion dollars worth of new funding [...]

Items of note

I want to draw your attention to a couple of items you may find interesting.

For those of you looking to register for Camosun College courses that start in September we have been informed that you can begin registering on July 7th. Contact Camosun for more information.
The next VIATeC VIAfest is scheduled for July 31st. See their [...]

From a distance

I know lots of you would like to take courses that are specific to your field in order to learn new skills or keep your current skills up to date. I also know that finding appropriate courses can be a difficult task. Because of this I wanted to point out that BCIT offers many courses [...]

Teaching the teachers

Teaching in BC is one of those regulated professions that requires membership in a governing body. In this case the BC College of Teachers is responsible for reviewing applications from foreign-trained teachers.
This article examines the issues and describes a Simon Fraser University professional qualification program which helps immigrant teachers to make the transition to BC classrooms. 

Is a foreign credential a barrier to employment ?

Sadly for some employers it appears to be. An article in the Montreal Gazette touches on this issue.
The foreign credential issue, to be sure, is one part of the problem. Employers have trouble assigning value to a degree obtained from a foreign academic program with which they are not familiar.
Forty-four per cent of companies in a [...]

Immigrants arrive better educated

Canada held a census in 2006 and StatsCanada has been releasing the data bit by bit for the last year. Reading census data is an important part of understanding what is happening in the Canadian economy and labour market.
The latest release deals with employment and demographic information. You can read some of the highlights here. Today’s [...]