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Fancy awell-paid job in Canada with a future?


Scarlet Pimple

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Well, this Article is for you! A likely lad or a likely lass. With ambition, not afraid of hard work, get along with people and are willing to qualify yourself in whichever way is necessary to satisfy the requirements of your selected job and employer. You don't even have to be qualified in any field to  have your request for employment looked at with interest.,,as is clearly stated in the article. But you do have to be willing to be flexible, adaptable, and be willing to listen and learn.

 

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140430-need-work-think-canadian-energy

 

It's the best article on job seeking, securing and developing a career in a highly-paid and emotionally satisfying work environment here in present-day Canada that I have ever read? Why?

 

Because every paragraph resonates with truth and satisfies my acutely developed sense of what is correct and accurate as it pertains to this country in which I have now dwelt for over 40 years.

 

e.g the references to the burgeoning field of LNG , Liquid Natural Gas, is spot-on. In B.C. the current Premier is busting her gut in attempting to get the industry started up North and there is a very high probability of success. In northern British Columbia here on the coast, and in Northern Alberta our next door Province neighbor, there are very high-paying jobs available in oil rigs. In Alberta they are crying out for workers to operate in the tar-sands projects which are not going to go bust or go away any time soon since the money they spew out is incredible. An oil refinery is mooted for north eastern B.C. which will take 3 years to build and which will spawn thousands of jobs both in its construction and to operate the refinery after completion. 

 

So, if you are  bored with your employment, realize that your position is a dead end, or the boss doesn't like you and you have the distinct feeling that there really is no future there, I can suggest that you make a move. The race goes to the swift not the moribund or the laggards.

 

The population of Canada is only 35,000,000 or thereabouts--imagine that in the second largest country in the world and you can see what opportunities are available for those who are willing to take a chance. This is now a very multi-cultural country where what you can do and how you can get along with people is more important than what you look like or where you come from. If you ask someone where they come from , meaning what overseas place, you might get a big surprise if they say Burnaby, which is a local Municipality here in B.C.

 

I have two stepsons aged 28 and 35. Vitaly and Yuri came here some 14 years ago and did not speak a word of English. Now they speak fluent English without a trace of an any accent and read and write reasonably well.

VItaly took courses and qualified as a senior cook, as a computer graphic artist and now has done very well as a professional welder and is in charge of q welding shop  some 60 mil4es from where we live in Maple Ridge, B.C. He is continually studying to upgrade his welding expertise and I keep telling him to go to the Tar Sands, or up north, and come back in three to four years with a huge amount of money in his pocket. I also could have got him into the shipbuilding of Federal Government  vessels in North Vancouver district for the twenty year contract  about to start there through a man who lives just down the road from us who is a foreman painter in the docks there and said he knew the project boss!! I know he has a goof future ahead of him and lives in a very nice part of the Province.

Yuri is a mastermind when it comes to anything mechanical electrical, woodworking  or plumbing. . Having started playing with tools as young kid in Ukraine he was ably taught by his grandfather from an early age and is now a foreman of an auto body shop, has just bought a $50,000 GMC large pick-up truck, has rebuilt his mobile home and does all his own work. In other words  he will never be short of money  because people love to use his skills in any  project  hey need him for --includig me. The difference being that I now pay him for his labour and cost of materials. Sigh! Reason? Because he is so busy that I have to make an appointment and or grovel to get projects done that my arthritic hands can no longer handle... :laugh:

If you are caught up in the old boy/girl network, can only see promotion on the horizon if you wait for "dead men's shoes" or are very restless and unfulfilled, or just know that a change is as good as a rest, then you probably have the following options:

 

1. Make your mind up and determine your own self-directed course of action.

2. Contact Canada House in London and start to express enthusiastic interest  in emigrating--don't  allow them to put you off, pester them if necessary! 

3. Send me a P.M. and we can talk.

4. Examine your qualifications and consider whether they may be  strong enough to present as an option for you to continue in your current employment if you like it or think about a change of career where you use skills you may think you have but have never really employed before as a means of survival or as a career. Once you get into Canada and make some good money then your options also change for the better.

5 Re-read the above article carefully and even write to one of the Company references mentioned in it , such as Packers I think he said. If you do contact a Canadian company, format your letter in a very positive way, expressing your willingness to listen and learn, your adaptability and ambition to master another trade  etc.  

6. Start searching online for job opportunities in Canada and contact people. The worst thing is to become discouraged because you just never know what conversations with others will lead to. 

 

Anyway, hope that you enjoy the article and reflect on the information and wisdom it hands out.

 

Kind regards to all --great win today.eh? :wave:

 

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Just one question Scarlet. If all those oil and gas opportunities are there and are as good as you make out why do so many Canadians work in Gulf of Mexico, West Africa and Azerbiajan? The ones I speak to claim no opportunity, very poor conditions and low pay as their reason for travelling the world.

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Probably the climate Alex. They go to these areas probably because they want an easier climate and time of it.

 

The article spells it out for you..those who want big money had better come prepared for hard work ---which is also  dangerous sometimes  if you don't do what your are told and ignore advice etc.  Mind you the rigs usually pack up in the winter   so they work long hours in the warmer months.

 

Not sure why you are asking me these questions though. Maybe you can enlighten us as to the answers?

I only posted the comments as gleaned from what I have seen re the workings of these rigs on T V and the information well detailed in the article.

 

There are many other high paying jobs in Alberta other than operating oil rigs. 5 or 6 years ago waitresses in Calgary, the capital, were earning $31 per hour plus tips which I have no doubt were very remunerative. There are also very remunerative jobs working on the pipelines that are being put down across Alberta and other Eastern provinces now running oil or bitumen to  Eastern ports and one huge one in Northern B.C. destined to export stuff from Prince Rupert on the West coast. It's the subject of controversy but the Feds have approved it so the protesters will have to work very hard to derail it now. Especially since our Premier is obsessed with getting LNG  out of the ground as well here in B.C

 

My one question to you is : when you say no opportunities, poor conditions and low pay what country and what industries are you referring to?  If it's Canada then  maybe they are not that skilled workers or maybe they are not too keen to put up with hard work in difficult locations--again, the article highlights that possibility. But I have never ever heard of low pay being an issue anywhere in the oil patch(es) here in Canada. Look, nothing is for nothing--these jobs usually attract people who are wilo8ing to pout in a limited time to make a large sum of money and then go elsewhere. But those who do make it and are on the regular payroll of the large companies in Supervisor or management positions have paid their dues, stuck with it , gained recognition and favour and moved up from a low position to one where the conditions are probably better with higher pay and greater responsibilty.

 

The last thing I would mention is that oil extraction and refining is not the ONLY profession in this multi-cultural country. If you get hired because of your qualifications then you can do very well just as you can in any other part of the world. Except, in other parts you often have to contend with discrimination or other barriers to advancement. And the sports played here can range from snow-shoeing to field hockey, cricket, rugby and so forth ad infinitum.  

 

All I am poutting forth is that this all adds up to one thing: OPPORTUNITY.

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There are many other high paying jobs in Alberta other than operating oil rigs. 5 or 6 years ago waitresses in Calgary, the capital, were earning $31 per hour plus tips 

No wonder - I was in Calgary about 4 years ago and they were charging $7.95 a pint. Well over £5 at the time.

And it wasn't even a real pint. A pint in the UK is 20 oz or 568 ml. In Canada it varied but it was often as little as 16 oz.

 

Another thing to factor when the price of petrol in N.America is reputed to be so cheap - you don't actually get a full gallon, just 80% of a UK gallon.

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Dunno about all that Mantis.

 

I rarely drink in bars but if you paid $7.95 for a pint then they saw you coming.  ha! ha! Just let me retort by reminding you that I paid  about eight pounds in Inverness Museum for a small soup and a roll and a cup of coffee and my sister had a coffee and a bun and that was 6 years ago. So maybe you were in a museum, mistaking it for a bar cos it had a stuffed Moose head on the wall. :lol:

 

And also the beer is stronger here so maybe they didn't want to have to carry you out. Seriously when half the big money is situated in Calgary these days  of course they are going to pump up the price. The place is buzzing .

 

About the gasoline--6 years ago I was shocked at the cost of it in Inverness -double what we paid at the time for the equivalent of a gallon, being 4.55 litres imperial.This is the  American and British standard which I used for comparison so work it out. So, an imperial (British) gallon here in Canada is just that, a gallon. An awful lot of people go down across the  nearby border into the U.S. to buy groceries and gasoline and do save a lot of money but to me that is just a boorach unless you  want to stuff your boot to the gunwales with stuff. Booze is also cheap there and my wife brought back a bottle of whisky which cost  her $10 or about 5 to 6 pounds.

 

Here in the Wild West we also have to pay considerably more than in Toronto where Scotty resides. When  they are paying $1.18 for a litre in Toronto (we serve it in litres, not gallons) the price we will be paying here in Vancouver, some 2,200 miles further West, is closer to $1.35 or more. Earlier this year we were paying $1.50 per litre but the decrease in the price of oil on the stock market allowed for a reduction now to about $1.28 per litre in Canadian dollars.  

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I had a quick check and it appears that Canada uses the Imperial Gallon but the U.S. doesn't. They still use their own gallon which is 8 very short pints. However I don't remember how the U.S. sells fuel as it's years since I was there. It may well be sold by the litre.

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Canada may have used the gallon in the past but everything is litres now (except a pint of beer) ..... price per litre this morning here in Toronto was about $1.19.

 

The cost of a beer can vary wherever you go .... I pay about $6 for Alexander Keiths in the bar I sometimes go to in midtown so thats about average. It is usually cheaper away from the downtown core and more expensive as you get closer ... have seen some "plastic pubs" clocking in at $8 or $9 for a pint of Stella or other "premium imported". On a TFC matchday we have a special rate at the supporters bar we go to so its Stella for me at $5 a bottle rather than Budweiser or Keiths at the stadium for $11 per can. 

 

Lots of opportunity in Alberta as Scarlet says, but very harsh environment, especially in Winter, and very high cost of living from what I am led to believe because of the high wages. The economy is also tied in large part to the price of oil. It is more expensive to extract the oil from the tar sands so when the price drops like now you find many companies pressing the pause button on their larger projects.

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