On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Carlos Marcano wrote: > Top candidate countries are the usual suspects: Canada and Australia, > as those are the ones which: a) Seem to offer the kind of prospecting > life we want for ourselves and for our kid (mostly for her) and b) > Seem to have the most immigrant-friendly policies. > I have never been to Canada and Australia and has never wanted to migrate to there (I like to stay in Singapore). But many of my friends are in either Canada or Australia (the other two places are US and China). So this is based on perceptions I got from my friends. Indeed Canada and Australia are the top two choices for people contemplating migration in this part of the world (East and Southeast Asia). Main reason may be the language (English) and social welfare system and relatively easier to get in for professionals. New Zealand is also nice, but the job opportunity may be even worse. > We are pretty much informed that it is very hard, initially > and sometimes even forever, to get jobs in the same line of work or > areas as the ones we currently have and that it is usual for > immigrants to work in a wide range of survival jobs or lowly paid > jobs. > > Australia is, in the other hand, a mysterious land for us. Australia may be the same as Canada in terms of job opportunity. That being said, my friends (mostly in IT or Electronics) who chose to stay in Canada/Australia all managed to secure a decent job. Some of them chose not to stay and came back to Singapore/China since they think the job they can get is not as good in Canada/Australia. 10 years ago, a friend went to Toronto, three months later he came back to Singapore. He told me the only thing he learned in Toronto is Cantonese (a dialect spoken in Guangdong and Hong Kong and many people speaking Cantonese in Toronto) and no hope of a decent job. But he is a Chemical Engineer by training. > Some additional info, I am an Electronics Engineer; 6 years of > experience working as a Maintenance Engineer II at one of the biggest > hydro electrical complex in the world, mainly doing maintenance, > failure diagnosis and repair of power electronic controlled systems > (excitation systems for hydro gens, ups, inverters), speed and power > electric/electronic regulators for governor systems, synchronization > systems. First generation immigrants typically have to go through some hard time. Power engineering may be a good field for some countries but maybe not such a good field for some countries, not so sure about Canada/Australia. Presumably it is difficult for immigrants to be in this field (somewhat protected). So almost none of my friends who were doing Power (high power) related job are doing that in Canada/Australia. Ok, one of them is, in Canada, but not as an engineer, only as a technician. He is happy though. His wife has a decent job as an electronics engineer. His son is now entering a good university. It seems to me that your kids and wife would have a good time in Canada/Australia, but you may need to struggle a bit if you choose to migrate to Canada/Australia. So it all depends. -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist