Workers
eschew
Page
D20,
Charles Mitchell
Before John Kavanaugh left
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
"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
Then Kavanaugh started looking overseas and answered an ad in
In the 1990s,
between 22,000 and 35,000 Canadians left this country for the
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
"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
"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
"The
thought of working another 10 or 15 years in
"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
Despite all the
benefits, it was a culture shock for both men initially. Being in the
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
"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
"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
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
"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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