Three Weeks Before EI Exemption For Self-Employed Expires

There is a little over three more weeks to take advantage of an exemption to the newly introduced Special Employment Insurance (EI) Benefits programs for self-employed people in Canada.

The programme offers certain types of EI benefits – maternity, parental, sickness and compassionate care – to self employed people.

It does not include payments that regular employees receive when they are laid off, and that could be one of its weaknesses. To be fair, though, self-employed lack the employer-contribute component of premiums.

The new rule came into effect on Jan 31, 2010, and is part of a government program to extend certain EI benefits to the self employed through the Fairness for the Self‑Employed Act.

One has to wait a minimum of 12 months after starting to pay premiums to be able to receive benefits, but if those joining the programme before April 1, 2010, can receive benefits as early as January 2011.

Anyone who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident and is self-employed can join this ‘voluntary’ programme.

Those who are self employed while working part-time can also join the programme.

Formally, to join the programme a self-employed person enters into a contract with the Canada Employment Insurance Commission.

And this can be done online from home or through a Service Canada kiosk.

Some critical information on the new EI Special Benefits for the Self Employed programme:

The Premiums

Calculated at the rate of $1.73/100.00 of earnings, up to a maximum earning of $43,200.00 for 2010. It would mean the maximum amount one could pay as premium per year would be $ 747.36. Because of its own, separate benefits programmes, those in Quebec will pay only $1.36/100.00

This programme does not apply to hairdressers, taxi drivers, and drivers of other passenger-carrying vehicles who are not employees per-se but whose employment is insurable under the EI Regulations.

The Benefits

Maternity: available to birth mothers, and covers a period of up to 15 weeks surrounding a child’s birth.

Parental: available to biological and adoptive parents, and can be taken by either parent or shared between them up to a period of 35 weeks.

Sickness: available if the insured person is unable to work because of illness, injury or even quarantine, up to a maximum of 15 weeks.

Compassionate Care: paid if the insured person has to take off from work to care for a family member who is gravely ill with a ‘significant risk of death’, for a maximum of six weeks.

Termination:

One can terminate the programme within sixty days of signing up, or if no benefits had been received. If benefits had been received, then payment into the system is mandatory during the person’s self-employment career.

More information can be obtained here.

Canada’s French Province Wants More Indian Students

Canada’s key French province of Quebec is on an offensive to attract more students from India and other nations.

The Quebec Premier Jean Charest made the announcement recently in India that foreign students who complete higher studies in his province will be given a Certificate of Selection which in effect will put them on a fast track to obtaining Canadian citizenship.

At present, one has to have lived at least 1095 continuous days in Canada with permanent residence status to be able to apply for Canadian citizenship. Each day spent in Canada legally but without a permanent residence (for example, with a student permit) will be counted as half a day.

The new Quebec system will come into effect Feb 14, and will be valid only for those who have completed bachelors, masters or doctoral studies.

Quebec officials hope this accelerated path to Canadian citizenship will attract more Indian students to their province. Quebec officials say that at present about 4,000 of the 25,000 foreign students in the province are from India.

The Quebec move is part of a major offensive launched by Canadian educational institutions and the government to attract more Indian students to Canada.

While a number of educational institutions have signed bilateral projects with Indian counterparts, the Canadian government launched a major initiative early last year. Named the Student Partners Program, the program was launched last April between the Canadian visa offices in India and twenty members of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC).

And in the first nine months, the program reported that the Canadian visa offices received more than four thousand applications, and that the approval rate has doubled. Furthermore, the processing time is also much faster, with the average of about two and half weeks.

According to one study done by the Canadian foreign affairs and international trade ministry, the foreign students sector contributed more than 6.5 billion dollars to Canadian economy in 2008.

Language Fluency, Teamwork Can Affect Immigrant’s Career Mobility

Two dollars and eighty cents Canadian.

This is the difference in the hourly wage of an immigrant Canadian with a degree and a ‘non-immigrant’ Canadian of equal qualifications and training.

Career Success of Immigrant Professionals: Stock and Flow of Their Career Capital

A new study that has appeared in the International Journal of Manpower says a non-immigrant professional would get about $ 30.10 an hour while an immigrant professional with the same qualifications that includes Canadian workplace training, will earn 27.30 an hour.

One of the critical conclusions of the study, that was co-authored by academics from Canada’s York University and University of Mississippi in the USA, is that there is more than just workplace training and development for a person’s career development.

It Is Not Just Training

The study found that while both immigrant and non-immigrant employees undergo the same type of training funded by their employers, it is a different story when it comes getting higher salaries, promotions or even increased job satisfaction. Immigrant professionals score low in all these sectors.

The study points out to one factor as a potential reason for this situation: lack of ‘cultural fluency’. This would include language limitation, including possibly the lack of experience in ‘Canadian English’, and the cultural difference in the education and training many immigrants have had.

For example, corporate cultures that emphasis on teamwork would be a stumbling block because while Canadian-born professionals have had this type of training and experience through their schools and later universities, the educational system in countries from where these immigrants come are different, the study points out.

By extension, therefore, while it is a good that for training is available for everyone, the training manuals have to take into account the cultural differences of employees.

Role of Biases and Stereotypes

Finally, the study does not discount that cultural biases and stereotypes can also play a role in denying immigrant professionals the rightful place in the workplace but this is something the study did not take into account.

But there is one interesting fact the study points out: immigrant/minority-friendly companies out-perform the Fortune-500 companies.

A number of studies have also pointed out how countries like Canada are losing billions of dollars by not utilising the experience of immigrants appropriately.

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Call for Canada to Bring in More Indian Students

India can expect more attention from Canadian universities and even the government’s officials responsible for immigration.

This, after an expert study called for dedicated effort to woo Indian students, not just as a source of foreign exchange, but also as an investment in cementing firm political, economic and cultural relationships with an emerging powerhouse.

In his study, titled ‘A New Direction for the Canada-India Relatiionship, Professor Ryan Touhey castigates the current status of Canada’s efforts to attract Indian students.

And Touhey has hard numbers to back up his complaint: Of the more than 150,000 Indian students going abroad every year for studies, less than three percent – about 4,000 – come to study at the various universities and colleges in Canada. Compare this to the 80,000 that go to the USA and 40,000 to Australia every year. Even New Zealand, which has much weaker links to India than Canada, with its more than half a million Indians spread throughout the country, gets more than 6,000 students every year.

Economic & Political Advantages

For one thing, attracting foreign students is good for the economy, as they pay much more than what locals pay for their studies.

A case in point is Australia.

Since the nineties, Australia has invested heavily in attracting Indian students with a number of annual events throughout the country. The foreign students sector itself is said to be the third largest foreign exchange earner, with annual earnings of about 12 billion dollars. And the estimated 100,000 Indian students are the second largest group next to Chinese.

The importance Australians pay for their foreign student component was very evident during the racially motivated attacks on Indian students in May of this year. Conversations were held at the highest level between officials of both countries, and recently even the Australian deputy prime minister was in India to reassure that Indian students are welcome.

But it is not just economy that benefits from having Indian students, says Prof. Touhey.

It is also about building future relationships.

India, along with China, is emerging as an economic powerhouse and nations are hurrying to build relationships with current leaders of those nations. But today’s students are future leaders and once they return to their home countries and rise up in life, they will fondly remember all things Canadian, and this will help Canada politically, says the study.

80,000 Foreign Students Come to Canada Annually

About 80,000 foreign students come to Canada every year and recently the government announced it was keen on increasing this number. At present, Canada offers a host of incentives for foreign students and these include allowing them to work here after studying and an easier path to permanent residency in the country.

Ontario’s Record on Integrating Skilled Immigrants

Audiologists and speech-language pathologists. These are two professions that have the most number of foreign trained personnel in Canada’s Ontario province.

The province’s independent Fairness Commissioner’s latest report says more than a third of the almost 3,200 professionals in this sector were trained abroad.

The report tracks the performance of the 34 regulated professions and how they are dealing with, among other issues, assisting skilled immigrants integrate into the Canadian workforce.

The 34 professions regulated in the province are: architects, audiologists and speech-language pathologists, chiropodists, chiropractors, dental hygienists, dental surgeons, dental technologists, denturists, dietitians, early childhood educators, engineering technicians and technologists, engineers, foresters, general accountants, professional geoscientists, land surveyors, lawyers, management accountants, massage therapists, medical lab technologists, medical radiation technologists, midwives, nurses, occupational therapists, opticians, optometrists, pharmacists, physicians and surgeons, physiotherapists, psychologists, respiratory therapists, social workers, teachers and veterinarians.

All in all, just about one in seven of the more than 700,000 professionals working in these sectors were trained abroad.

While pharmacists and audiologists-speech language pathologists professions have a high percentage of internationally trained professionals, Opticians and foresters come at the bottom of the table, with just one percent.

Some professions – surveyors, lawyers, midwives and paralegals – did not submit any data.

A quarter of the provinces engineers and 27 percent of the doctors and surgeons were foreign trained.

One interesting facet of Canada’s changing demographics is also very evident in this study. More and more professionals are coming to Canada not from other Anglo-Saxon countries such as Australia, the US, UK or even South Africa, but from countries such as India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

For example, of the top ten professions in the province, the US is the top source for five (teachers, lawyers, management accountants, chartered accountants and social workers) and India comes second with three (physicians and surgeons, engineering technologists and technicians and general accountants). China is the top source for engineers while the Philippines sends most of the nurses.

To view or download the report, go to the Ontario Fairness Commissioner’s site.

Jobless Numbers Go Up

The numbers keep rising. This is the fact when it comes to unemployment in Canada.

Statistics Canada says that in May of this year, 778,700 people were receiving employment insurance – or EI which is actually unemployment insurance. Compared to the previous month, this was a 9.2 percent increase.
This is a severe increase, compared to the increase of just under three percent that April witnessed, as compared to March, 2009.
The worst hit provinces were the oil-rich Alberta, where the low oil prices have caused a severe setback to the economy and Ontario, which has been hit by the crisis in the auto industry and lower demand abroad for manufactured goods.
The latest data comes just days after Bank of Canada, the country’s central bank, said the recession was over.
The bank says Canada’s economy will grow by a modest 1.3 percent during the current quarter ending September and then by three percent during the final quarter of this year.
However, officials say the labour market will be slow to pick up.

Employer’s Roadmap to Help Hiring of Skilled Immigrants

The Canadian government has come up with a new tool kit to help local employers hire and retain foreign trained professionals.

The Employer’s Roadmap aims to help employers find qualified immigrants to fill their vacancies.

The Roadmap is full of links to resources that range from seeking the Labour Market Opinion, should they want to fire someone directly from abroad, to interpreting foreign credentials and experiences of immigrants.
It also gives tips to employers as to how to reach out to foreign trained professionals.

Studies have shown that while the education levels of Canada’s newcomer population has been increasing, the labour market integration has been slow if not in decline, and this has become not just a political and social issue, but one of economic as well because of the billions of dollars the country loses by forcing engineers and doctors to drive cabs.
And successive governments have taken a number of measures to alleviate this situation.

The Employer’s Roadmap can be found here.

Jobs With Future 2 – Nursing

Canada needs nurses. Lots of them.

According to Health Canada and the Canadian Nurses Association, Canada might need up to 113,000 nurses by year 2016.

Generally, the shortage of nurses is a worldwide phenomenon, for reasons ranging from increasing population to diseases becoming treatable.
And in many countries, such as Canada, the population is also ageing, and therefore demand for geriatric care is increasing.

In Canada, nursing population is also ageing: in 2006, the average age of a nurse was 45, with about a third over 50 years.
In fact, a former official of the Canadian Nurses Association has said securing sufficient nurses would be vital for the sustainability of Canada’s health care system.

Those in Demand in Canada

The latest list of High Demand Jobs issued by the Canadian ministry of immigration lists three categories within the nursing profession.

Head Nurses/Supervisors
Registered Nurses
Licensed Practising Nurses

At present, just under eight percent of Canadian nurses are foreign-trained but this can be expected to increase as Canada tries to meet the demand. As well, Canada is becoming very diverse and in some parts of the country, such as the Greater Toronto Area, health institutions carry notices in more than one language.

How to Apply
Nursing in Canada is delegated to provinces/territories and, as such, it is they who regulate the profession.
Anyone needing more information about immigrating to Canada as a nurse, and sitting for the exams can approach the local consulate/embassy/high commission. More information can also be found at the website of the Canadian Nurses Association.

Jobs With Future 1 – Seniors Homecare

Seniors Homecare

This is one of the sectors set to see rapid growth.

According to the Canadian Homecare Association, more than 600,000 Canadians of age 65 and over received homecare in 2007, and this is a 51 percent increase over the figure in 1997.

And over the next twenty years, the ratio of Canadians older than 65 will rise from one in ten to one in four.

And as health and retirement costs rise, many families will decide to keep their ageing parents at home for as long as possible and hire home healthcare companies to provide the needed healthcare. This reduces the cost of having their parents live in assisted living centres. Besides, this will also give the seniors an opportunity live in a known environment.

And all levels of government in Canada provide help for those in need.

However, it is impossible to meet the every need of a senior in-homecare. Here is where private companies come in.

Cdn$20b

And one employment agency predicts that up to 20 billion Canadian dollars will be spent over the next 10-15 years in seniors homecare.

One Canadian newspaper, the Calgary Herald, recently quoted some private homecare companies as saying their businesses have been booming, with some seeing an increase of more than 20 percent.

What is Homecare?

Definitions vary, but generally it refers to a variety of programs offered in the community to help people remain in their own homes, help reduce hospital admissions, and allow earlier discharge from hospitals.

Home care is appropriate if you need professional service from registered nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and social workers, or if you need personal care provided by home health aides. (courtesy:elderwise.ca)

Canada to Reduce Immigration Intake?

Canada might consider reducing the number of immigrants it will allow if the current economic downturn continues. That the numbers will go down is not confirmed, but the federal immigration minister, Jason Kenney, recently expressed his worry about bringing in newcomers to face a country in economic turmoil.

At present Canada’s unemployment rate stands at 7.2 percent and the trend is disturbing. In January, 2009, alone it jumped by more than half a percent, or by 129,000 in absolute numbers. The worst hit has been Ontario, where most of the immigrants prefer to go to.

Unemployment Forecast

Some analysts say, another 200,000 or even double that amount might lose their jobs during the course of this year.  The government predicts that it will take at least four more years for Canada to reach the employment level of last year.

Immigration Target

It is in this background that Canada’s immigration politics should be seen. Last year, the country allowed just under 250,000 new immigrants, most of them under the Economic Class. As well, Canada also allowed about 140,000 temporary workers and close to 80,000 foreign students last year.

For this year, Kenney says the target is between 240,000 to 265,000.

With the economy in a steep decline and job losses mounting, Canadian policy makers would be concerned about frictions that could arise if there are more newcomers while locals struggle to find jobs. Besides, settlement agencies have also expressed concern about the fact that immigrants tend to suffer more from unemployment than their Canadian-born counterparts, even if they have equal or better qualifications.

But for now, Kenney says, he will stick to his target for this year. But some analysts predict the number of temporary workers, mostly farm workers, might drop this year.