Oz vs Canada for a young Engineer?

Zoolander1

Have been thinking strongly about emigrating and am narrowing it down to Oz and Canada. Have friends who have gone to both places and really have no preference at this moment in time.Also worth noting that I'm a young civil engineer with a couple of years experience but the plan would be to work any job I could initially until I got one in that field.

Would love to hear some opinions on the difference between both countries from those who have been, or even general opinions on either country in terms of

chances of employment in engineering
cost of living
social scene

Thanks in advance.

mandrake04

You failed to mention difficulty/Processing time in getting a visa!!

I read on another website that Canada is much longer waiting times than Australia, considering that for Australia your talking about at least 9 months to 3 years.

Cormaclynch could advise you on the civil Engineering aspect.

cormaclynch

Zoolander,

I have no experience of Canada so can’t help you there but I’m currently working in Australia. I assume you still have your working Holiday Visa for Oz? If so an option would be to come here on that and get work and aim to get sponsored. The work prospects here are pretty good at the moment. Lots of work around and lots of companies sponsoring people. I’m working in Melbourne and I know there is a fair bit of work here and in victoria. I’ve heard Perth is pretty good too but not sure about the rest of the country, I assume there is a lot of work everywhere.

If you’ve worked as an engineer for 12 months out of the past 24 you could apply for the Skilled Migrant Visa. Not sure if it’s changed much since I applied last year. Pros and Cons of WHV over Skilled Migrant are discussed on other message posts. Skilled Migrant visas are a lot more preferable to an employer I think as basically you are an Australian citizen for employment purposes.

Not sure what else to say apart from there is work in the industry and the wages are better than in Ireland. If you have any specific questions let me know and I’ll do my best to help you out.

byrner51

hi cormaclynch i see you mentioned your working in melbourne at the moment.im headin to australia in december travelling for a month and then will be looking for a job around jan/feb in the melbourne area.

im a qualified electrician with papers etc just wondering what my chances would be in finding any electrical work around melbourne?

Id appreciate any advice ya might have for me thanks

cormaclynch

Byrne to be honest I wouldnt really know what your chances are of finding work. The only thing I'd say is there is loads of developments and apartment blocks going up in and around Melbourne so there should be loads of work out there. Probably just keep an eye on seek.com.au and take it from there