Hi Salus,
I have read your posts to Cecil with some interest as the topic of migration
to the West is one of my interests. Indeed, I had at least two articles in
the Herald (Goa) on this topic about a year or so ago.
From your post about the situation in Australia, and another one from
another source regarding Canada, I do note more pain experienced initially
than I had expected. This has made me speculate about some explanation and
I'd like to share this with you even though I do not know if I am right.
I suspect that, both Australia and Canada are seeking more people to settle
in because they are vast and quite underpopulated. A ready population
available for an intended/hoped for economic upturn is not as daft as it may
sound, despite initial costs, often borne by the immigrant. Naturally, they
seek the more educated/skilled, if possible, but do manage to fill in for
where there are skills shortages. Such people get appropriate jobs more
easily while the others have to eke out a living by initially taking any
jobs to keep body and soul together for a while. The economies in these two
countries have not been strong for several years in my view. In contrast,
the current situation in the UK does seem at least a little different. It
has never been a migrating destination per se because it is pretty crowded
for a small territory. However, because of an ageing population and also
specific skills shortages, it has been recruiting via passport rules etc,
consistently, for the past forty years or so. If some 4.5 million people
from the periphery of the old Empire have come in since then, it is reckoned
that roughly an equal number will come in, mainly from Eastern Europe and
the southern Mediterranean to make up for continuing skills shortages in the
next few decades. This is not to say that one can walk into a choice job
immediately, but the situation does seem to appear less stark as has been
made out in some posts regarding Australia and Canada. Those from Goa
getting out via a Portuguese passport inevitably make the UK a prime
destination even though the experience may be pretty tough at first for non
professionals. Qualifications from the Indian subcontinent appear to be
judged more precisely in the UK now, and unless I have got it totally wrong,
professional people today find a niche more easily perhaps than they did
some time ago.
Another factor in the UK is that the current economy is really booming,
especially, in the South East of the country and places like Scotland are
denuded of people heading south but this has a severe downside in that
accommodation to live in (the SE) is incredibly expensive even for the
locals. I think this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future,
notwithstanding the absolute need for a lot of people, especially, in the
building, IT software, and health services. I hazard a guess that there are
some parallels between the UK and the USA but would like to learn more about
the reality of the English speaking destinations for our folk in Goa via
Goanet.
Regards,
Cornel DaCosta, London, UK.
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Among other things, Cecil wrote:
I have heard stories of qualified professionals in Australia (and elsewhere)
doing menial jobs as there are no job opportunities in their particular
field. Isn't that then a waste of an education? Not to say the problem does
not exist in India, but we do admit to it...
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Well Cecil,you too have written well, but then that's what you always do,
much to the delight of Goans who read Goanet!
What you said above is true. But you have to remember that it applies to
you and me who think of migrating with their grey hairs on! It is difficult
as you rightly said, for qualified professionals who migrate, to get job
opportunities in their particular field. But that is not the case with the
young ones who live and qualify here. Somehow there is a problem with us
getting jobs in our field, however highly qualified we may be. But the kids
start right away, and that makes the difference. The young ones have open
doors in any careers of their choice in this country.
