# Irish Moving to Toronto



## shanks00001 (Oct 17, 2011)

Hey there everybody! I am new to this so not sure if I am even doing this right. My name is Thomas. I am from Tipperary in Ireland and I am looking to move to Toronto to live and work for at least a year (hopefully more seems as how hard it is to get work here now). I am a fully qualified Carpenter and would love to know if anyone out there can help me in anyway possible ie good agencies to contact, what areas are the best for construction work so on and so forth. Any help would be very very much appreciated 
Also, I am moving on my own and am kinda freaking out about a place to live for the first while anyway and was wondering if anyone knew good places to move that won't get me killed ;0 and even where to go to meet new people and friends.
I really hope someone out there can help me, a lot of people have told me how helpful people can be on this  
Thanks and I hope to hear back soon.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

Heya, Shanks, happened to read your message and wondered if I could help a little. There's actually a fair amount of construction in the city at the moment; given the state of the world economy, I'm kind of surprised. But right outside my office window, about a hundred yards away, there's a tower crane.

Given that, I was wondering about carpentry jobs in town, and I found this website... it's wowjobs (dot) ca (sorry for breaking it down but I'm apparently too new to post links here yet). I did a quick search for "carpentry" with an 100 km radius around Toronto (what would be considered the GTA, Greater Toronto Area) and it came up with about four pages of results. A quick glance gives starting salaries in the mid-teens per hour, more experience in the mid-20s, and some, like concrete form creation, in the 30s. I guess it depends on what you know and what you're after.

There aren't really too many places in Toronto I'd consider dangerous, even at night. Some places are less well-off than others, like anywhere else, but I can't think of anyplace I'd consider a real no-go zone. There's no place in the city that would be an "immigrant" part of town... it all is. We're on the verge of crossing the 50% foreign-born threshold, if we haven't by now. Downtown is expensive, of course, and the places really on the grow in the 'burbs can be too, but the midtown suburban fringe built in the 1960 and 1970s is reasonable, in my opinion. Rents for someplace decent would be in the range of about $900-1200 a month, I think. I was paying $1250 a month for a two-bedroom place till I bought a similar place as a condo earlier this year.

Looks like the easiest way to get into Canada right now is the working vacation scheme ("International Experience Canada Initiative")... experience from which counts if you decide to take up permanent residency here. They're expanding it to 5350 spots for Ireland next year from the 5000 all used up this year. This would be a good time to apply, I expect! I'd post the link for the Irish but, again, they won't let me yet. Try this: canadainternational (dot) gc (dot) ca (/) ireland-irlande (/) experience_canada_experience (/) index (dot) aspx?lang=eng

I'm a Canadian-born Irish citizen myself and was in Dublin, with a breeze through ancestral Ulster, in May of 2009, mostly on the dime of my buddy there. Didn't get down southwest where you are; he says that's for next time. I'd love to live and work there; was interviewing for a position in Cork; but my timing stinks and I think it'll be a while at this point.


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## shanks00001 (Oct 17, 2011)

Hey thanks so much for getting back  
I actually have a visa all ready to go and I think that I am going to be heading over in January but on my own so far anyway. Kinda nervous but i suppose that is to be expected! Thanks for the tips though especially about the work situation. I would start applying for work now but it would be hard when I don't have a home over there yet.
As for coming to Ireland, the next time you are here Cork is a great city. I lived there for a while and loved it but you have to see Kerry and two of the most beautiful places in Ireland are Galway and Mayo. I would move to Galway in the morning if there was work for me there!


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## Akira336 (Nov 30, 2011)

Hi Shanks, I am in more or less the same position as you, I'm an unemployed carpenter from waterford and strongly considering a move to Toronto in feb/march, have to look into getting a visa, did you go for the whv? And where did you get it and how much? Best of luck over there, really hope it works out for you!


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