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As the Associated Press reports, there's no shortage of work for Mike Kirby, a 21-year-old apprentice electrician in Iowa who's lately been on the job 10 hours a day, seven days a week.He and others in the traditional trades are in great demand throughout the United States, with many trades groups and employers hotly recruiting high school students to try and fill the growing need for everything from plumbers to bricklayers and drywallers.
Most foreign computer workers entering Britain in the past year were from India, new research showed this week.
More than eight of out 10 of the 22,000 overseas IT (information technology) workers came from India, suggesting that multinational companies were recruiting staff in low cost countries and transferring them to high cost markets, said the report.
The Association of Technology Staffing Companies said its study showed the true scale of the reliance on foreign workers to plug skills gaps.
Australia faces a shortfall of 195,000 workers in five years time, the federal government spokesman says.
An ageing population was to blame for the expected shortfall, which would have a massive impact on Australia's economy, Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews said.
"The impact of the ageing of the population is not something that is happening in 10 or 20 years' time, it's something that is happening now," Mr Andrews said.
"It's something which we must continue to address if we are to sustain the economic growth of this country."
Joe Volpe, Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Nov. 24 announced the Government of Canada will invest an additional $700 million over five years to make important improvements to the federal immigration system.
These improvements include funding to start reducing the current inventory of applications at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and a new process to allow immigrants with Canadian experience or Canadian education to apply for permanent resident status under the new In-Canada Economic Stream in 2007.
IMMIGRANT NUMBERS FOR DECEMBER 2005
A. STATUTORY NUMBERS
In an exclusive guest editorial for Expatica, MEP Cem Oezdemir, who was the first German of Turkish descent elected to the Bundestag, looks at the challenges Germany's new government will face integrating its immigrant communities.