New Brunswick city hosting job fair for immigrants
Credit to Author: Shelby Thevenot| Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 19:34:42 +0000
The bilingual city of Moncton, New Brunswick is hosting a job fair for immigrants in hopes of connecting international talent with local employers on January 24.
International students, newcomers, and prospective immigrants are invited to explore employment options in the fields of IT, finance, insurance, customer service, health, hospitality, and manufacturing.
“Last year alone we filled 117 positions and we are looking to increase that this upcoming year,” Angelique Reddy-Kalala, Immigration Strategy Officer with the City of Moncton, told CIC News.
Reddy-Kalala estimates that there are 500-1000 open positions to be found at the job fair, and the number of employers seeking international talent is at capacity.
While most of those in attendance are already in Canada on a work or study permit, for example, Reddy-Kalala expects that about five per cent will come from abroad seeking job opportunities.
“We recognize that people are looking for jobs and we have them. That coupled with an affordable housing market as well, our quality of life is excellent… We see people coming from Toronto who would like to have a better quality of life.”
Moncton recently released an immigration strategy to double the number of immigrants within the next four years. In 2018, the largest city in New Brunswick welcomed 1,444 immigrants and non-permanent residents and by 2024 they hope to increase that to 3,500.
Representatives from the Province of New Brunswick will be in attendance providing information on immigration.
Given that Moncton is an officially bilingual city many of the employers will be seeking candidates who speak both English and French. There will also be many opportunities for English job-seekers, and a few that would be seeking unilingual French speakers.
The job fair will take place January 24, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Avenir Centre. A registration form is available on their website.
The following is the list of companies registered to attend:
The job fair is part of a series that takes place about every three months. The next event will be on March 19.
Moncton is the largest city in New Brunswick with a population of nearly 85,198.
About 64 per cent of the city speaks English as a first language, and about 35 percent are francophones, according to Statistics Canada.
The Université de Moncton is the largest French university east of Quebec. The city is also home to the University of New Brunswick, Crandall University as well as several community colleges and private colleges.
The City estimates that there are more than 8,000 immigrants living in the Greater Moncton Area, with about 5,000 of those being active in the labour market.
They also estimate about 1,500 international students study in their post-secondary institutions, and about 700 temporary foreign workers are contributing their talents to the community.
The 2016 Census reports that 275 immigrants were self-employed in Moncton, representing eight per cent of immigrants to the city. That number has grown recently to 17 per cent of self-employed immigrants setting up businesses in a variety of sectors such as personal and professional services, as well as food services.
“We’re actually leading in the province in terms of the amount of immigrants that are moving here,” Reddy-Kalala said.
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