From the inbox, a Ph.D. organic chemist working in industry in the UK (let's call them "WHK") asks some immigration questions about Canada:
- How easy is it to find a job in Canada (senior chemist / group leader / lab manager or similar)?
- How can I compare my current salary in the UK with wages in Canada? What about house prices?
- In the UK, we have the NHS; how does the system work in Canada?
- Who sorts out visas, me or my prosepective employer? Are visas easy to get?
- What about citizenship, should I bother?
- Where would I most likely get a job in Canada (BC, Toronto, Quebec)?
I still don't know enough about the Canadian pharmaceutical/chemical industry to answer this question competently. Readers, any thoughts?
(For the Americans in the crowd, "Blighty.")
My understanding of the job market for chemists in the Great White North (where I'm from) is that it's pretty slim at best. A few smaller companies in Toronto/Mtl/Vancouver and a smattering in the provincial capitals: there are biotechs in Winnipeg and Calgary (even PEI!), but I imagine moving jobs in those places is not so easy. Valeant and Endo are HQed in La Belle Province, but they aren't really R&D shops (nor are those offices any more than perfunctory to evade US taxes). I don't think the wages are at all competitive with the US, though no clue what chemists make in the UK. There's a reason I moved to the US---beyond a plot by 'them' to lower wages of American chemists.....That and the weather in SoCal is waaaaaaaaay better than Eastern Ontario.
ReplyDeleteCanadian healthcare is readily available, though wait times can be long (i.e. 1-2 years!) to see specialists and getting a GP even in Ottawa or Kingston can be tough. The US system, while annoyingly bureaucratic is much better if you have the $.
Work visas are about the same as H1Bs in US, employer just has to jump through some meaningless hoops to show there's no qualified Canadian. To me it seems little impetus to hire someone form another country unless there is a strong skillset or person they want.
Unsure re citizenship. It's easier to get than US (Canada has a birthrate problem, and most ppl would rather move to US than GWN), and dual citizenship is allowed. I'm not sure if it's easier for citizens of Her Majesty from the UK to get access to Canada. I know the converse used to be true.
To be clear, Canada is a great place to live and consistently ranks among the best places to do so in the world (http://www.presscave.com/top-best-countries-to-live-in-the-world/, this list shows Canada as the best country in the world with a population over 25 million).
There are really very few major research outfits left in Canada as biotechreador said, and they are also disappearing quickly. America is the place to be.
DeleteAs biotechtoreador said, there are a few smaller companies in Canada, but most of the major research companies have long since departed. In Montreal, some of the smaller companies have been on a hiring spree as of late, but from what I've gathered, it's most CRO-type work. Given the abundance of chemists in the area (many of whom are Quebecois and want to stay in the province), the salaries aren't particularly competitive, often closer to $60–65 K. In Toronto and the surrounding area, there are quite a few CROs as well, but the situation is pretty similar, so in those cases it comes down to where you'd prefer to live.
DeleteI am from US but been working in BC a number of years and pretty much can confirm what biotechreador says above. I had to be sponsored/show justification for my work visa/permanent resident card although it may be something you can try do yourself (We have an Accountant who migrated from Ireland who did so on her own). At certain levels the salaries appear to become a bit more competitive with the US (or people would go south) although the costs of living/taxes is noticeably higher than US (however both are lower than most of EU countries I think) but partly because the health care cost is built in inflation factor. The CDN government has actively supported and funded biopharma with less of the lip service that hear in the US however there are only a few pockets of viable companies
DeleteIf this fella is British citizen, then he can walk into Canada! The queen still rules there. After that he is on his own and may be some kind of dole out from the Canadian government from time to time. And, if he is not a British Citizen then all bets are off!
ReplyDeleteJob market is highly field dependent. BSc chemists in Calgary can make $120k CAD working oilsands analysis. The recent glut has clamped down on this, but it's still operational, and if WHK isn't moving ASAP, he should really look into it. There are virtually no organic synthetic positions available.
ReplyDeleteWork visas are not a huge pain, but the recent political landscape has shifted against hiring foreigners in entry level positions. If you come from the UK, you probably don't have anything to worry about.
Health care for foreign nationals is a bit of a grey area, just like for the NHS. Obviously all emergency stuff is just taken care of. When you get a work visa, you sign up for health care coverage, although the details vary by province. Everyone complains about wait times and comparisions to the US but the data shows mixed results.
Citizenship/PR is nice if you plan on moving here permanently and find good work.
"In the UK, we have the NHS; how does the system work in Canada?"
ReplyDeleteStep One: Get in car.
Step Two: Drive south to hospital/facility/doctor across border.
Still, Canada's health-care system is less dysfunctional than the NHS.
Hey, come on, now. I've lived in the UK, Canada and the US. I did well by the NHS. And the health care system in Canada is not that bad. Either system is better than Obamacare (but it could be worse....imagine "Trumpcare" or "Bushcare")
DeleteEven at that, there is a small synthetic company around Quebec City (OmegaChem) which CLAIMS that they will sponsor visas. And they list job openings on their website (they confirmed to me personally that the job openings were current). As a Yank, I applied there out of desperation, but I guess that they weren't desperate enough....
Canada's immigration process is a breeze compared to the US. You can actually apply for permanent residency even as a grad student, and by the time you are a postdoc you could become a citizen. Here in the US you can't apply even for permanent residency if you don't have a permanent job, so you have to wait until after your postdoc. Then you have to wait another five years before becoming a citizen. It's quite crushing. I know one or two very talented people who went to Canada specifically because the process was easier there.
ReplyDeletere: US immigration: You can also just walk across the border. No hassle, no paperwork.
DeleteYup. Literally.
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I agree. US immigration is a disaster. I've spent more time and money dealing with USCIS (my wife had a green card, but we had to give it up) than I have spent dealing with all other government bureaucracies in the US combined, many times over. Japanese immigration is literally ten times faster, cheaper, and easier. Actually, more than ten times. My last Japanese work visa cost $35, was approved in eight days, and required only a few hours of my time to prepare and submit. Getting permanent residency (for which I will soon qualify) would be the same, but would set me back a whopping $65 and probably take a month or two.
DeleteI'd guess my wife and I, along with my employer, have spent something like $16,000 on her green card, including multiple international trips at USCIS's whim. It takes a year for the process to go through, the last four months of which it is impossible to work legally (you can't leave the US without voiding your application but you don't have a work permit) and costs thousands of dollars even if you don't use a lawyer. I've probably submitted 600 pages of documentation to USCIS over the years and spent god knows how many hours dealing with it. Because we've been in Japan too long, she had to surrender her green card, and if/when we go back to the US, she has to start over. They crazy thing is that marrying an American is the easiest way to get past USCIS, and it is still hell if you need to move in and out of the country.
There was actually someone at my grad school who started a couple of years after me who did that. We became friends during his second year and he told me he was thinking of staying in the US and finding a job later so that he could get an H-1B. I told him that the process in Canada is a lot easier. You can get in on the points system as a permanent resident and if you get a PhD in Canada that gives you a lot of points for having a PhD, then for living and studying in Canada. Afterwards, if he gets a postdoc, he can apply for permanent residency and the time spent during the PhD can count (maybe only half) towards the four year limit you have to wait to apply for citizenship. I also told him that under NAFTA it's easy for Canadian citizens to work in the US under the TN visa where there is practically no approval process. Plus Canada allows dual citizenship so he doesn't have to lose his first one or he can get an American one later if he really wants.
DeleteI thought we were just shooting the breeze during lunch when we were having that conversation, but a week later he decided to leave. He wrote letters to people in Canada literally a week later (after checking the Internets), mastered out in a few months, and went to do a PhD at the University of Alberta. He must be done by now. And is probably a Canadian citizen.
@ SJ - I was thinking more of this one:
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Do you fit one of these Canadian Talent Shortage jobs?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.manpowergroup.ca/campaigns/talent-shortage-2015/#topTen
Incidentally, here is a link from this evening which compares Canada to the US. On one hand, there do not appear to have been any Canadian chemists who participated in the discussion:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cultural-differences-between-Canadians-and-Americans
On the US political front, a lot of US-Americans who have not really considered how people in other democracies live might be willing to consider Canadians, specifically their superior health care system, lack of endemic gun violence, low-price college tuition and so on. It would be nice if some of our more open-minded politicians would not shy away from the comparison.
Also, average life expectancy for Canadians is 3 years longer than for Americans. Oddly, Americans spend about twice as much per person on healthcare....someone's not getting their money's worth.....
DeleteI used to like the expression "there's no political party in Canada right wing enough to abolish socialist medicine, and no party in the US left wing enough to enact it". Still true, to a degree.
Canadian population - about 35 million.
DeleteU.S. population - about 320 million.
That's why you can't have socialized medicine in the U.S.- the numbers and health care extreme cases in the population are against you. Remember, with a population of 320 million we have more in common with China or India than we do with most OECD nations.
The U.S. tries it here and there, and what you wind up with are death lists, accelerated costs, and a total lack of accountability.
Delete""That's why you can't have socialized medicine in the U.S.- the numbers and health care extreme cases in the population are against you."
ReplyDeleteReally? Is that serious? Western Europe, while obviously not a single country (but not so many) has a population >320 million and does a nice job of delivering socialized medicine: if there were some sort of geopolitical division in the United STATES that could replicate that.....). And what's the result? Spending per person on healthcare is markedly lower and people live longer. I'm continually amazed that the USA, with all its potential, is happy spending more on healthcare for worse results than the rest of the 'civilized' world.
The downside of letting Americans live longer at lower cost by socializing medicine, of course, is less innovation in drug discovery due to price controls which could (in a few decades) decrease life expectancy ex-US (Americans are very generous in paying higher prices for drugs to subsidize R&D for the rest of the world---that pharmaceutical lobby is doing a bang-up job for Sally Housecoat and Johnny Sixpack in Wyoming.... ). US life expectancy has increased by ~4 years since 1990, much of that likely thanks to pharma R&D.
Darn. Biotechreader beat me to it: I, too wanted to point out that the combined population of western europe (EU) is greater than that of the US, yet they also successfully have socialized medicine and yep, their average life expectancy is greater than those of US Americans...
DeleteThe only legitimate reason for not having socialized medicine in the US is that you're profiting from the current situation, then "if it ain't broken, then don't fix it". And the folks who aren't profiting from it are unfortunately not socially aware enough to express their dissatisfaction.
Four considerations -
DeleteFirst, I think you'll find that socialized medicine in Europe largely exists as separate national socialized medicine institutions that came into being prior to the EU - and are therefore separate and coeval with the EU. For example, the NHS was founded in the UK in 1948, and even the NHS consisted of separate regional (sub-national) entities, at least one of which was legislated for prior to that (NHS-Scotland, in 1947), whereas the EU was still in infancy through the 1950s. Health-care in the EU even today is not managed as a single entity, but rather separately managed as national entities. This is far more tractable and certainly not on the scale (and sans many of the difficulties) of imposing a single health-care regime on the third most populous nation on the planet. 28 "small" systems are probably more functional than one huge one (and let's face it, gov't managed health-care in the US .
Second, define "successfully" - when I lived in Europe I saw that socialized health-care could (and did) result in waiting for months for treatment of serious and deteriorating conditions. "Free" treatment is great but only provided you survive the wait.
Third, life expectancy is not solely based on availability of health care - in fact, some of the people who live longest are pretty far away from the nearest medical provider.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/14/world/lerik-journal-yogurt-caucasus-centenarians-never-eat-it.html
http://www.whyamiunhealthy.com/5-longest-living-people-in-the-world-what-makes-them-so-healthy/
Fourth, the recent VA scandals should provide some insight into how well the US government manages health-care.
There are many other places on the internet to have a debate about single-payer health care.
ReplyDeleteMy bad - I was trying to explain what might make Canadian health-care as a system more tractable than US health care.
Delete"There are many other places on the internet to have a debate about single-payer health care"
ReplyDeletewell CJ it IS your blog, true. However there have been many other digressions from chemistry topics into politics here. What is so special about this one?
It's irrelevant to the post.
Delete