{"id":211736,"date":"2019-04-28T03:35:03","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T07:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=211736"},"modified":"2019-04-28T03:35:03","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T07:35:03","slug":"this-ontario-city-has-canadas-lowest-unemployment-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/28\/this-ontario-city-has-canadas-lowest-unemployment-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"This Ontario city has Canada\u2019s lowest unemployment rate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Old City Hall (Provincial Offences Court) at Night, Guelph, ON (Photo By TheGiantVermin at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The unemployment rate in Guelph, Ontario, was the lowest in Canada once again last month, maintaining a trend that\u2019s attracting an increasing number of immigrants to the so-called \u201cRoyal City.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Located 100 kilometres west of Toronto, the city of nearly 132,000 people had an unemployment rate of just 2.2 per cent last month \u2014 the lowest in Canada, according to a\u00a0monthly labour market report card<\/a>\u00a0compiled by BMO Capital Markets.<\/p>\n

The average unemployment rate for the 33 Canadian cities listed was 5.3 per cent.<\/p>\n

To get a better sense of the type of job prospects immigrants to the city might find, CIC News spoke with Sohrab Rahmaty, employment coordinator with\u00a0Immigrant Services Guelph-Wellington<\/a>, a local organization that works with newcomers to the city and surrounding county.<\/p>\n

Manufacturing<\/b><\/h3>\n

Rahmaty said there is a \u201chuge need\u201d for labour in Guelph\u2019s manufacturing sector. Two companies in particular \u2014 the auto parts maker Linamar and Danby Appliances \u2014 regularly hire immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeneral labour, blue-collar jobs \u2014 machine operators and such \u2014 immigrants do well getting those jobs,\u201d Rahmaty said.<\/p>\n

Last October, Danby Appliance President and CEO Jim Estill told an immigration-focused conference that there is \u201can unlimited number of blue collar jobs in Guelph\u201d \u2014 enough for both Canadian-born workers and immigrants.<\/p>\n

Rahmaty said this fact has helped draw many immigrants to the Guelph region who had initially settled in other parts of Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey hear through family, friends or contacts, or their own research, that we have a lower unemployment rate and strong manufacturing sector,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a pull factor for a lot of newcomers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local companies are \u201cvery open\u201d to newcomers, he added, and a number have developed language courses and buddy programs to assist newcomers adjust.<\/p>\n

The need for labour is such, Rahmaty said, that companies are now competing for workers, which is having an impact on salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re losing X amount of dollars a day because you\u2019re short-staffed, there\u2019s an incentive there to pay a little more, to provide pathways to skill upgrades \u2014 and we\u2019re going to see more of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Work for skilled professionals<\/b><\/h3>\n

The high demand for blue-collar workers in Guelph does not mean there aren\u2019t opportunities for skilled professionals, Rahmaty said.<\/p>\n

The city is a hub for agricultural research and is home to Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, \u201cso you see a lot of people with veterinary backgrounds and biotech backgrounds coming and settling in Guelph,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0University of Guelph<\/a>\u00a0is another source of potential employment for professionals, notably academics and researchers.<\/p>\n

The university placed fourth among Canada\u2019s comprehensive universities in last year\u2019s\u00a0university rankings by Maclean\u2019s Magazine<\/a>. Comprehensive universities are defined as those that\u00a0conduct some graduate-level research and offer a wide range of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs.<\/p>\n

With a growing number of skilled workers coming through Canada\u2019s\u00a0Express Entry system<\/a>, Immigrant Services Guelph-Wellington is developing a \u201cconnectors program\u201d that Rahmaty said will connect internationally trained professionals with a professional currently working in their field locally with the goal of linking them to three other professionals.<\/p>\n

Rahmaty said professional newcomers coming to Guelph need to keep an open mind when it comes to work and be willing to work outside of their profession or in entry-level jobs \u201cto get Canadian experience and sustain themselves financially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professional newcomers who immigrated through Canada\u2019s Express Entry system are typically well-equipped with excellent communication skills, education and work experience, all of which can help them to find employment quickly and work their way up into more senior positions.<\/p>\n

It also helps to identify professional skills that may be transferable to Guelph\u2019s employment market, Rahmaty added.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven Canadian-born, Canadian-educated students rarely go into a job that is exactly what they studied,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re utilizing those transferable skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may have been in the auto industry in India or in the finance industry in Dubai, but how do you take your transferable skills and put them to use here in Guelph?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unemployment rate in Guelph, Ontario, was the lowest in Canada once again last month, maintaining a trend that\u2019s attracting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":211737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-immigration","mauthors-cic-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211738,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211736\/revisions\/211738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}