‘Good news’: Nixing Canadian experience rule spells opportunity for foreign engineers in Ontario | 24CA News
Dmytro Zaitsev had greater than a decade of expertise working as {an electrical} and photo voltaic engineer in Ukraine earlier than he fled the conflict in that nation for Ottawa.
But these years of labor nonetheless weren’t sufficient for him to use for a skilled engineering licence in Ontario as a result of he lacked Canadian work expertise.
The state of affairs meant Zaitsev – who arrived in Canada in October – needed to work entry stage jobs as a photo voltaic panel installer and electrician to assist his spouse and baby.
A latest change in rules, nonetheless, imply Zaitsev and different internationally skilled engineers not require Canadian work expertise to be licensed within the province.
“It is good news, ” Zaitsev mentioned in an interview. “It helps to get a job in Canada, an engineering job.”
Under earlier guidelines, one 12 months of Canadian work expertise in engineering was required to use for a licence in Ontario. Immigrant engineers needed to work for a 12 months beneath the supervision of a licensed Canadian engineer to realize that have.
But that was a difficult requirement, Zaitsev mentioned.
“How can I get Canadian experience, if I can’t work in Canada?” he mentioned.
The Ontario authorities launched laws in October 2021 stopping sure regulated professions and expert trades from requiring Canadian expertise {qualifications}, until they obtained an exemption.
Professional Engineers Ontario final month grew to become the primary regulatory affiliation to place the regulation into impact, forward of an end-of-year deadline to conform.
Zaitsev mentioned securing an engineering licence might assist him get a brand new, higher-paying job that higher matches his expertise and expertise.
“I want a little more because I need to pay my rent for the apartment and food and all,” he mentioned.
Since arriving in Canada, Zaitsev mentioned he has additionally taken coaching programs from a company that helps newcomers, and has discovered new engineering expertise.
He mentioned he hoped these new expertise, his six months of expertise within the Canadian job market in entry-level jobs, and the prospect of an engineering licence, will assist him land his dream job.
“I’m optimistic about this,” Zaitsev mentioned.
The provincial authorities has referred to as the transfer a “game changer” that can assist fill roughly 7,000 vacant engineering positions in Ontario.
Accessible Community Counselling and Employment Services, a charity that helps internationally skilled engineers like Zaitsev, mentioned the dropping of the Canadian expertise requirement is a welcome improvement.
“We know this will assist thousands of internationally trained professionals to successfully integrate into the engineering profession,” the group wrote in an announcement.
“Changing the Canadian experience requirement will enable us to help qualified, international applicants work toward Canadian licensure and enter the Canadian job market in their chosen profession, without unnecessary delay.”
Wasseem Makhoul, an expert engineer who immigrated to Canada from Syria in 2015, mentioned the transfer is a “step in the right direction” however famous that corporations may nonetheless desire to rent candidates with native engineering expertise.
“The company that is going to hire you, they wouldn’t hire you as a fully qualified professional engineer if you just got qualified yesterday,” he mentioned.
Makhoul, who at the moment works as a undertaking supervisor at a non-public mechanical firm, mentioned he labored as a plumber and building employee for years after arriving in Canada, regardless of having greater than a decade of worldwide engineering expertise.
While he now holds an Ontario engineering licence, he mentioned the entry-level jobs he labored throughout his preliminary years within the province helped him turn into a greater engineer.
He instructed having internationally skilled engineers take brief, intensive coaching programs earlier than they enter the Canadian engineering area to greatest put together them for the native business.
Professional Engineers Ontario has mentioned that dropping the Canadian work expertise requirement for licence functions strikes it to a mannequin targeted on competency, fairly than geography.
Its vice-president has mentioned the group will nonetheless guarantee solely “properly qualified, competent and ethical individuals practise engineering.”
Professional Engineers Ontario has mentioned as much as 60 per cent of the licence candidates it evaluations yearly are internationally skilled.
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