More U.S. Job-Hunters Try Australia

Wall Street Journal:

SYDNEY--Australia's economic boom is spurring a steady stream of unexpected visitors looking for work: Americans.
U.S. citizens are heading to Australia in small but growing numbers as near-10% unemployment at home drives more to look for jobs Down Under, where China's thirst for iron ore and energy is transforming the Pacific nation into an economic powerhouse.
Daniel Davila, a 23-year-old timber floorer from Camarillo, Calif.--a Los Angeles suburb knee-deep in the Golden State's housing dust bowl--made the 14-hour move across the Pacific two years ago.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[dlo2]

10:28 PM on 01/03/2011

Australia, according to my Aussie friends, is booming especially in IT. Salaries and lifestyle good...just stay away from the flooded areas.

But, on a more serious note, is this the beginning of an era of US brain drain?

[Peter McLeod]

07:11 PM on 01/03/2011

Why don't you just cede Hawaii and the Western seaboard states to us - that way at least the Us residents of those states wouldn't have to worry about our immigration laws - actually forget Oregon and Washington, too cold, just give us Hawaii and California, they'd fit into our culture and lifestyle very easily (nice for holidays too).

[fortressfountain]

09:36 AM on 01/01/2011

Isn't that the country that imports labor telling them they will work with computers and instead they are working in dangerous meat plants and such for pennies?
I don't think I want to work there.
Not when people get chopped up in their factories.

[demilieu]

03:40 PM on 12/30/2010

Th best cardboard boxes, pencils and toothpicks are still made right here in the good 'ol US of A.

[demilieu]

03:33 PM on 12/30/2010

It's very difficult for foreigners to get a work permit there. Put another way, they protect their domestic labor pool. And looks what happens. Geeze. Anarchy. People living on the streets. Hey, wait a minute...maybe this actually WORKS?

[trobts]

11:20 AM on 12/30/2010

When is EVERYONE going to admit that CAPITALISM is a FAILED (big time) system. Need to admit it first, then can we change it. If other countries (without Capitalism) are doing okay, that should be one of many clues that failure is not an option anymore. Acknowledge, accept and MOVE ON to another system!

[anthonyve]

05:17 AM on 12/28/2010

It's not quite that good, but it's getting up there.
But you left out the single best thing about my country - Everybody getting a fair go is an article of faith that almost defines our ethos. Also we have little time for extremists of any stripe.

[bender86]

07:04 AM on 12/28/2010

You might be a bit disappointed if you come here with those expectations, American education and media can differ alot from reality.

The top marginal tax rate if 45% compared to 35% in the US, naturally rich people also find ways to avoid tax in this country too. Australia actually has one of the highest number of working hours of any industrialised country. We haven't gone into a recession because the likes of China needs resources, those resources a supplied by companies such as the world's largest miner BHP. That's where the money and the jobs are.

[ajl1239]

03:36 AM on 12/28/2010

Hard, cold FACTS:

Australia's Minimum Wage in U.S. Dollars: $15.12/hour

U.S. Minimum Wage: $7.25/hour

Australia's Unemployment Rate: 5.6%

U.S. Unemployment Rate: 9.3%

[AirViceMarshalPark]

02:27 AM on 12/28/2010

Americans are, by and large, too educationally limited to successfully emigrate to modern foreign nations. A neighbor hosted a 15 year old Dutch girl as an exchange student and she, already. was fluent in Dutch, English and German. She placed out of high school courses in math, chemistry, physics and world history and was enrolled in a local college in these disciplines.

[Fromageball]

09:30 AM on 01/01/2011

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. I know of several Americans who have done the same thing in math/sciences, skipping high school and and taking courses in a local college instead. Maybe not fluent in all those languages, but if we were a group of smaller countries who all spoke different languages instead of one big, fairly homogeneous country, we would probably speak more languages too.

[Hdaryl01]

02:16 AM on 12/28/2010

This is a topic that should be getting a lot more attention than it is. And, it is not just migration to far away Australia. I have several professional American national friends that have expatriated and de facto migrated to any number of countries for better career prospects, and frankly, better and more fulfilling lives. Virtually none of them have any regrets. I have peers all over the world who were born and raised in the U.S., and whose families have lived in the U.S. for generations. In addition, I have any number of friends who are foreign nationals who came to the U.S. for education, and who have subsequently returned to their countries of origin, or migrated to other countries to practice their professions. These are top-flight, highly educated professionals in their late 30's and early 40's-lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, software developers, IT professionals, etc. In my case, our family recently reverse migrated to Canada. My wife had lived in the U.S. on a Green Card for 35-40 years or so. Luckily she never naturalized as an American citizen. Thus, she was able to sponsor me for a Canadian Permanent Residency Visa. Our two kids are Canadian. We have both established very satisfying professional careers in Canada, and our kids very much enjoy an educational system ranked heads and shoulders above the U.S. system. We have universal heathcare, and live satisfying lives in a civil society.

Who will remain?

[JASONH0099]

01:45 AM on 12/28/2010

too bad you could not read the whole article....

[ritamary]

12:23 PM on 12/28/2010

So if you are unemployed and curious about immigration to Australia, you cannot read about it here. The article is from Wall Street Journal so we should not be surprised.

[Tom95134]

01:39 AM on 12/28/2010

It is not so easy to get a work visa for Australia. There are significant restrictions on age and then you need to find an employer who will help you jump through the hoops to get all the paperwork done.

[mrcontinental]

01:05 AM on 12/28/2010

Well you had better know your stuff because the Aussie are very well educated and very professional when it comes to the workplace so unless you have a great work ethic don't even bother.

[LiteSleeper]

01:26 AM on 12/28/2010

Who told you that? I worked at an Australian bank in Manhattan. Great work ethic does NOT come to mind.

[Siebenstein]

01:48 AM on 12/28/2010

You know why?

That bank is located in the U.S.. That's why. Do you see the point of regulation now?

[Twinings]

02:03 AM on 12/28/2010

Having worked in both countries I would agree with you about work ethic. Australian's have a well developed sense of work/life balance. Despite this I feel Australian's tend to work a bit smarter. I've seen many US work colleagues stuff things up due to lack of being able to work on issues that are slightly 'outside of the box' of their training. May be due to worsening education standards.

[Tom95134]

01:43 AM on 12/28/2010

You are right about the work ethic. Expect to work long hours fi you are in an hourly paid position. However, unless you are looking for a job in a profession you will find you don't need the degree. If you need a degree then you will find yourself in for some pretty heavy competition.

[GerryS]

11:02 PM on 12/27/2010

their economy isn't much better off than ours,

and talk about wildfires, the aussie fires would make CA's look mild-------------------

[Antipodeus]

11:29 PM on 12/27/2010

"their economy isn't much better off than ours..."ROTFLMAO!! x 1 gazillion! You're HALF right ... you got the bit about the fires right.

[GSR]

01:06 AM on 12/28/2010

We chose not to have a recession when the US economy took a swallow dive into the toilet, and it's been 21 bloody years since our last one. That's 21 years of uninterrupted growth and low government debt. Where the hell do you get your information from? No don't bother replying, I already know.