Workers eschew U.S. to head east

Page D20, Toronto Star, Careers/Workplace section, Saturday Oct 2nd

Charles Mitchell

Before John Kavanaugh left Canada he never imagined that he would end up making six figures living in a foreign country with a housekeeper and a house - all paid for by his employer.

The 31-year-old was working as a manager for a credit and collections company just a few years ago, but said he felt that he had reached the plateau in his career, so he decided to look outside Canada to the developing countries.

"I did work in the corporate field for a few years that followed my undergraduate degree and I barely climbed the corporate ladder. There were a lot of snakes and ladders and I didn't find the opportunities there, " Kavanaugh said.

After his work in collections he toiled around Toronto looking for other employment but said he never felt like he was able to excel fast enough with any particular employer.

Then Kavanaugh started looking overseas and answered an ad in Toronto to work in the Persian Gulf. After a few interviews he said he was offered a management position with the national office of a U.S-based oil company in the Middle East.

In the 1990s, between 22,000 and 35,000 Canadians left this country for the United States, according to Statistics Canada, as part of the so-called brain drain, a term used to describe educated and skilled workers who emigrate from Canada to south of the border in pursuit of higher pay and lower taxes. However, Kavanaugh was not one of them. He is one of those Canadians who are bucking the conventional brain drain trend, deciding against moving to the United States and instead relocating to developing countries.

While there are no specific figures tracking these expatriates, the phenomenon is something that the employment industry has seen for a while. For instance, among permanent emigrants from Canada, those headed for Asia increased from 9 per cent in the five-year period between 1986 and 1991 to 19 per cent in 1991-96, according to Statistics Canada.

"There are two kinds of people going to these countries: Canadians who are entrepreneurs and those who are adventure seekers. The first group sets their sights to become CEOs and the second group of people are those who want to live a journey - enjoying it," said David Smith, partner in the Toronto-based recruiting company Mandrake Management Consultants. The firm has placed some of its candidates in Third World countries.

"I'm most definitely an adventurer as opposed to someone who wants to run a successful business," Kavanaugh said, explaining that the U.S was never really an option because living in a developing region gave him the chance to see parts of the world he might not otherwise.

Guy Gostling, 41, also classifies himself as an adventurer. Ten years ago, when he was 31, he emigrated from Toronto for Indonesia. He said he had been working in advertising for five years locally but felt he had reached the glass ceiling.

"The thought of working another 10 or 15 years in Toronto and barely moving the needle in advertising or marketing didn't sort of appeal me and I sort of wanted to take a leap of faith," Gostling said.

 "I went with the idea that I would give it a go for six months and hopefully something would work out and, if not, I would come crawling back," he said. "It was more about the experience. It was more about living and, if I could try to become rich at the same time, then of course."

The advertising executive moved around several Asian countries including Korea, and Indonesia. He currently resides in Hong Kong for the same U.S.-based advertising agency that moved him originally 10 years ago. Like Kavanaugh, Gostling's employer also provides him with a house, maid and a six-figure income, he said.

Despite all the benefits, it was a culture shock for both men initially. Being in the Third World means being exposed to horrific poverty and at times systemic corruption in how resources are delivered to the poor, Kavanaugh and Gostling said.

For some Canadians, culture shock is not an issue because they are second-generation or foreign-born Canadians who decide to move to their country or region of birth or ancestry because they have grown frustrated with the job market in Canada. These Canadians are able to find employment easier by taking advantage of their "social capital."

"What social capital is, is very vaguely defined as, something that keeps you together with a community. It could be language, religion, common history, common trust. Economists are taking this socioeconomic concept more seriously now," said Edgard Rodriguez, a senior economist for the Department of Finance Canada who has written extensively about human migration and labour.

"Why people would want to go back to a developing country is that they are going to be using their social capital. That is what is attractive to them. They see it as an opportunity."

 Economists are now defining developing countries as emerging economies, Rodriguez said, because they are pulling themselves into the industrial age, party due to recruiting of Western talent. The shift toward modernization of their countries is why there has been a steady outflow of Canadians to these countries and people with social capital then become more valuable.

"Canadians know how to make the dollar go farther. In comparison to their U.S. counterparts, Canadian executives have to get results with smaller budgets," said Smith. He said that Canadians are valuable commodities overseas because, unlike many Americans, Canadians know how to work with a limited budget, something that would be valuable in economically disadvantaged regions of the world.

Still, there could be a problem for returning Canadians. Domestic firms may be reluctant to recognize international work experience. One sign of integration in this country is how many years of Canadian experience you have, Rodriguez said. If most or all of your employment history is international, you could run into trouble if you decide to come back.

"Our system doesn't value foreign experience that much," Rodriguez said.

Many Canadians working in developing countries must face these issues when considering returning to Canada. Kavanaugh returned to Toronto and Montreal but has headed back overseas. Some experts worry about the likelihood of him and other citizens returning.

"The positive [of this trend] is that he will come back and bring back his or her experience and the specialization that he or she was working on. But the negative, if he doesn't come back, is we have a lost a talent that is hard to replace. Talent cannot be replaced. It is hard to replace," Rodriguez said

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