A recent survey has cited Alberta as an attractive destination for internationally trained engineering technology professionals to work and live in.
The Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta (ASET) surveyed its international members trained outside of Canada.
The survey found that 73.53 per cent of respondents arrived in Alberta when they first came to the country. According to ASET, many who landed elsewhere, such as in Ontario and B.C., relocated to Alberta for “better employment opportunities”.
The majority of respondents, 92.65 per cent, said they enjoy working in the prairie province.
One individual who appreciates working and living in Lethbridge is Mila Wagner.
The certified civil engineering technologist arrived in Alberta from Ukraine in 2016.
Concerned about her family’s safety in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Wagner decided she needed a safe place to raise her son. She had a friend living in Calgary, which gave her the idea to move to Canada.
However, when she first moved to Alberta, finding work proved difficult.
“When I first moved to Canada, my credentials and education were not fully accepted here in Canada, so I was trying to get back into my profession as an engineering technologist,” she says.
Wagner returned to school and earned an engineering technology diploma from Lethbridge Polytechnic (then Lethbridge College) in 2020.
According to the survey, many workers faced circumstances like Wagner’s.
Well over one-third (35.29 per cent) of respondents said they were not able to find work when they first arrived in Canada. Within that group, 53.66 per cent said it was because employers required Canadian work experience. Because of this, 76.74 per cent of respondents said they had to accept a job outside of their professional field to meet living expenses.
Wagner says more doors opened up to her professionally after she was certified, thanks in part to ASET. “It is a really welcoming community and there is a lot of places where you can go professionally, especially if you’re certified through [ASET],” she says.
ASET has been around for over 60 years. The association’s competency-based assessment program, launched in 2016, offers internationally trained and other engineering technologists a quicker route to earning ASET designations and establishing careers. After survey respondents contacted ASET, the association says close to 40 per cent of them took six months to one year to earn their ASET designation.
“In moving here, especially in my profession, I enjoy my work and I do [like] my coworkers and have always felt like I am at home,” Wagner says.
More about ASET is available via the association’s website.
