Skilled Technical Migrants: Canada says no to IT Skills; other countries say give us your geeks…
Posted by vonnagy on Aug 28 2010, in australia, canada, it labour, skilled migrant, uk, usa, zegarkus
I was just curious to check what state of IT immigration was amongst some English speaking nations of the world. To my surprise, Canada does not want any more IT Skilled labour (as of 26 June, 2010). This is the first time I’ve seen IT skills not in demand by a predominately English speaking country (French being the other national language of Canada).
Here is a quick assessment of English speaking countries and need for IT Labour:
- New Zealand: Skill IT Workers Desired
- Australia: Skill IT Workers Needed here and here (pdf link)
- Canada: Needs Cooks, Plumbers, and Mining Operators, but not IT Labour.
- United States – A bit more complicated, but it seems to be done through H-1B visa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
- United Kingdom: I couldn’t find anything specifically for IT, but it probably falls under the Highly Skill Migrant Programme. This looks like a preliminary test to judge your Academic background, earnings, age etc.
Of course there are heaps more English speaking countries in the world; I’ve only picked 4 of the larger nation (or popular) nations. Its hard to make an assessment based on that whether IT is dwindling, but I was certainly surprised to see one country (Canada) where IT is no longer a driving force to push skilled labour in their market