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📍 Editor’s Note
👋 Hiya,
Meet Sylvia. She moved to Canada two years ago, master's degree in hand, five years of solid work experience, the kind of CV that would walk into most offices and be taken seriously. She spent her first eight months in Canada working a retail job, telling herself it was temporary. It was. But it lasted eight months because she kept waiting for the right door to open rather than going to knock on some doors herself.
Now, you might be wondering, “what’s all this about Sylvia?”. Well, StatCan just released data showing that nearly two-thirds of recent newcomers find work within six months of arriving. Which means the system is not as broken as it sometimes feels. But the same data also shows that finding work and finding the right work are two very different things — and a lot of the gap comes down to something you cannot get from a settlement agency or an immigration lawyer.
This week's issue is essentially a field guide for exactly that. So let’s talk about it all
— Dami
This week’s pick from Abraham’s List🔥
Tenstorrent
This week’s pick is Tenstorrent, an AI hardware company building open, modular alternatives to the NVIDIA-dominated compute stack. It is one of the more interesting infrastructure plays in AI right now, with real funding behind it and Toronto-linked roles in architecture, RISC-V, AI hardware, and systems engineering. If you work close to chips, compilers, or AI infrastructure, this is one to watch.
Why Abraham’s List? Each week, we spotlight one Canadian startup that aligning yourself with may just get you out of the trenches
Adventures led by women, designed to make a difference.
Imagine a vacation that’s not only transformative for you but helps open doors for the local women you meet along the way. That’s what Intrepid’s new Women’s Expeditions in Peru, Cambodia and Bhutan are all about.
Designed specifically for women travellers, these trips offer immersive local experiences that support women-run and owned businesses in each destination. With an expert local leader out front, you could trek the lesser-known Chinchero to Urquillos route in the Peruvian Andes alongside an all-female crew, dive into Cambodia’s street food scene on a women-run tuk tuk tour, or unwind with a traditional herbal hot stone bath at a women-owned farmhouse in Bhutan.
First launched in 2018, Intrepid’s Women’s Expedition range is designed to break down barriers, foster discussion and create meaningful connections for travellers and locals alike.
EMPLOYMENT DATA
Newcomers Are Finding Jobs Faster in Canada. The First Job Is Still a Trade-Off. |
Statistics Canada just published numbers that are genuinely encouraging — nearly two-thirds of recent newcomers found work within six months of arriving. Then you read the wage data. Recent immigrant employees earned 23.7% less per hour than Canadian-born workers in the same period. And nearly a third of degree-holding newcomers were overqualified for their roles. Speed of entry and quality of entry are not the same thing. This piece explains what the numbers actually mean for how you plan. |
CAREER STRATEGY
High Agency Is the Newcomer Career Skill Nobody Can Give You |
The most common barrier newcomers face when looking for their first Canadian job is not language, not credentials, not even racism — it is the absence of Canadian work experience and references, cited by 42% of recent arrivals who struggled. That barrier does not open itself. This piece is about the specific habits that move people from waiting for the market to explain itself to building their own way in — volunteering as a networking strategy, building target-company lists, writing cold messages that don't feel cold, and what to actually do in your first 90 days. |
SKILLED TRADES |
A Newcomer's Guide to Working in the Skilled Trades in Canada |
The federal government has said approximately 700,000 skilled trades workers are expected to retire by 2028. That is not a rumour or a recruitment pitch — it is a structural gap in a labour market that needs electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters, HVAC technicians, and construction workers to build the housing Canada keeps promising to deliver. Most newcomer career conversations skip past this entirely. This guide explains what the trades are, how apprenticeship works, what internationally trained tradespeople can do with their experience, and where immigration planning fits in. |
LABOUR MARKET |
What Jobs Could Be in Demand in Canada Over the Next 10 Years? |
Anyone who tells you they know exactly which job titles will be valuable in 2035 is guessing. But there are structural patterns strong enough to plan around — an aging population that will need healthcare workers whether AI exists or not, a housing shortfall that needs tradespeople, an energy transition that needs people who can actually build things, and a technology shift that rewards anyone who can combine domain knowledge with AI fluency. This piece looks at five sectors with durable long-term demand and what each one actually means for career planning. |
LABOUR MARKET |
What Jobs Could Be in Demand in Canada Over the Next 10 Years? |
Anyone who tells you they know exactly which job titles will be valuable in 2035 is guessing. But there are structural patterns strong enough to plan around — an aging population that will need healthcare workers whether AI exists or not, a housing shortfall that needs tradespeople, an energy transition that needs people who can actually build things, and a technology shift that rewards anyone who can combine domain knowledge with AI fluency. This piece looks at five sectors with durable long-term demand and what each one actually means for career planning. |
IMMIGRATION POLICY |
Canada Could Move Toward a More Selective International Student System |
In 2024, Canada introduced study permit caps, higher financial requirements, and tighter institutional oversight. That was not the end of the review — a House of Commons committee has now published a report recommending it go further. Higher proof-of-funds requirements. Random audits of schools. And the one that matters most for Nigerian applicants: possible caps on study permits for nationals from countries linked to higher rates of overstays or asylum claims. This is still a recommendation, not law. But recommendations have a way of becoming policy, and the direction of travel is clear. |
⚠ POLICY WATCH: The House of Commons committee report on international students is not yet law. But if you or anyone you know has a Canadian study application in progress, the direction of travel matters now. Read the full piece above. |
Canada is a real place where real people are building real lives. It's just also a place that rewards the people who showed up with a plan over the people who showed up with hope. This week was about the difference between those two things. Make sure you have a plan always.
Go well.
— Dami
The New Local Team