Canada: Land of CNC Immigration?

There seem to be a lot of CNC jobs, especially in the Oilfield Industry, in Canada.
I get about as many calls with CNC lathe or mill questions from Canada, as from the USA.
Most of the guys calling are immigrants to Canada, from many Countries in Europe, from Asia and many, many from Africa.
Edmonton, Alberta, seems to have a lot of CNC shops and a standard complaint from a guy working there as an operator was that no one at the shop where he works, would ever want to answer a CNC question, so he wrote to me.
I did answer his questions and eventually he got a couple of my CNC DVDs.
He immigrated from somewhere in Africa and lives with his extended family, all of whom work as CNC operators.
His goal was to get a more responsible and bettr paying job, meanin setup and programming.
Here is the good news for him, it seemed totally flabbergatsing when I heard it:
He got a 2$ an hour raise. The most I ever got here in my many years as a Toolmaker was 25 cents an hour and I thought that was a lot.
Good for him.
For those of you that have no idea how hard it is to immigrate to the US, my family including me, got here because we were sponsored by our relatives in Chicago.
I worked in Chicago in a nice toolroom, when a German toolmaker living in Canada applied for a job on a Wednesday. He was highly skilled and got the job to start on the following Monday.
We later became good friends and he told me that he insisted on starting the next day.
He was down to $5 , sleepng in his car. By working Thursday he would get paid for 1 day on Friday.
Once you are in Canada and have a job here, it is much, much easier to be able to immigrate to the US.
About the 2$ raise, its great, just not too likely to get without raising your CNC knowledge a real lot.
If you need CNC help I can provide, give me a call, I'll do my best to help.
Heinz.
www.doccnc.com

I haven't personally been out to Alberta but know a few guys who have, and some currently there. Lots of oil field work and with the way the price is going it'll get even busier the next few years. I was told by a few people that there's a lot of people from the US working there as well, which seems kinda obvious since its oil related and much of it goes straight to the US.

People are definitely coming here from every part of the world, and some later on go to the US, I'm not really sure why.

Reassuring to know the Dominions are doing their bit.

Keep it up chaps.

Many, many shops have active overseas recruitment of machinist. I worked in a large multinational shop in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that brought in 10 or so machinists and their families from the Ukraine. Some worked out, some didn't, but it was the only way to fill positions.

Filling jobs is a huge problem is Western Canada, particularly the prairie provinces, due to oilfield and an all around booming economy. Since there are so many high paying jobs openings, there isn't much left to fill the lower paying jobs (service industry). Those positions are increasingly being filled by immigrants from the Philippines.

Armedsask said:

Many, many shops have active overseas recruitment of machinist. I worked in a large multinational shop in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that brought in 10 or so machinists and their families from the Ukraine. Some worked out, some didn't, but it was the only way to fill positions.

Filling jobs is a huge problem is Western Canada, particularly the prairie provinces, due to oilfield and an all around booming economy. Since there are so many high paying jobs openings, there isn't much left to fill the lower paying jobs (service industry). Those positions are increasingly being filled by immigrants from the Philippines.

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Do any of the big shops start any apprenticeships from first year, or do they wait to harvest 3rd and 4th year apprentices coming from other shops?

Apprenticing isn't very strong in Alberta. It pays pretty good, and can easily get in with little experience right now and who knows when this boom will disappear like in mid 2008 and everyone was out of work for 18 months, now it is booming. Most people want people with experience, but aren't willing to train them, typical story I'm sure...but it is exasperated when the depth isn't there. All I need a is someone with a good head on their shoulders, but I am one of the few.

HuFlungDung said:

Do any of the big shops start any apprenticeships from first year, or do they wait to harvest 3rd and 4th year apprentices coming from other shops?

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It varies from shop to shop. Some will take guys with zero experience, or pull guys internally from non-machinist jobs. Others want experience, especially with the more expensive CNC stuff.

Saskatchewan, and I'm sure other provinces, have a pre-employment program. I took the Saskatchewan pre-employment coarse 6 years ago. It's an 8 month course and you come out with the 2nd year apprentice training but 300 short of your second year certification. So after only 3 months or so working in the industry, I was a 2nd year apprentice. I, and 4 others from my course, went straight from school to a multinational corporation running some of the largest CNC boring mills in Canada. I had two or three job offers right out of school. True, I have a natural talent but most of the people I went to school with that weren't complete morons got right into great paying jobs. Many shops actively recruit from the trade schools, organzing tours and such. This was 6 years ago, things have slowed down a bit but there are still jobs out there.

I highly recommend a pre-employment program over the straight apprenticeship route. In fact, I'd have to insist on it. You get all the basics and then some without costing an employer time or money. Plus you get to do actual machining.

Mydrrin said:

Apprenticing isn't very strong in Alberta.

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Compared to where?

The NAIT Machinist program, one of the largest in North America, is conducted within the 31,000 square-foot, NAIT Sandvik Coromant Centre for Machinist Technology, which houses three machine shops, a CNC lab, two computer labs, five “smart” classrooms, and a metrology/inspection lab. It employs nearly 200 machine tools, including 24 conventional milling machines and 83 conventional lathes, and has capacity to train 1,820 students annually. The facility offers a four-year apprenticeship program (responsible for approximately 70% of Alberta’s machinist apprenticeship training); a full-time, one-year CNC certificate program; and two pre-employment machinist programs. At the core of its CNC machining programs are 36 CNCs, all made by Haas Automation. These include lathes, turning centers, dual-spindle turning centers, and vertical and horizontal machining centers.

Really, have you been working in Alberta as a machinist? I can count on one hand how many shops actually apprenticed from the ones I have seen, and I've seen alot. It gets better, a little bit, when times are good, but few are serious about it. Overall, beginner gets about $14-16, 6 months or so experience gets you $18, someone that can setup from sheets gets about $22-$25, good people that can make parts from drawings can make $30+. From NAIT they want someone with a 1 year "programming" certificate that is good for getting familiar with things. I know, I went through the course way back when. I knew more from my machining for the few months that I had, than the teacher, had to correct him all the time. NAIT pushes through a lot of people, they act like a business because thats what they are, they are there to produce certificates...get the 90% of tuition from the government.

Wonder what an old fart like me from the left side of the pond would make over there and how hard the adjustment/ getting in would be

Boris

hmmm Alberta....

looks like a day and a bit driving from there will get me down to see some old friends in Idaho