Indian students face problem of unemployment in Canada; dearth of job opportunities reported in Greater Toronto Area
Canada is expecting an influx of more than 7,50,000 international students by 2023. While actual numbers have not been made available, a substantial portion of this record number has already arrived in the January intake. According to media reports, this heavy rush of students has resulted in a housing crisis besides other inadequate amenities. Reportedly, many new arrivals are even forced to stay in homeless shelters.
A part from this, the international students are now lurching from one crisis to another: unemployment. It goes without saying that the vast majority of students come to Canada to take a job while they study. They work to pay for exorbitant tuition and living expenses. While it’s difficult to find work right away in the best of times, this latest batch has arrived at a time when Canada’s central bank has been steadily raising interest rates in order to induce a mild recession, IE reported. As a result, many students are still looking for work months after arriving.
‘Students putting efforts but aren’t finding any jobs’
“This is not what I’d imagined when I was leaving India for Canada,” an IE report quoted an international student Sumit, who arrived in Canada in January to study Global Business Management in London, Ontario, as saying. It took him two months to find a job. “Still I count myself lucky to have finally found a part-time gig. Because there are many international students in my college who are trying left, right and center, but aren’t finding any jobs. This isn’t what agents tell you in India,” he further explained.
What comes as the biggest shocker is the dearth of employment opportunities even in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The place has a thriving informal economy and cash jobs are usually plentiful, but even here the problem remains the same. “If you can’t find work in the GTA, you can’t work anywhere in Canada,” IE quoted another student as saying.
