Now that I am Canadian, I have filed for permanent residence for Tom_Scud. After a couple of IT-related false starts, his application is moving along - quoted processing times are around a year, but it seems like there’s a solid chunk of straightforward marriage-based PR applications that get approved within 4 - 5 months, and (fingers crossed) we should be in that category, which might mean his application might be approved as soon as the end of this year or early next year.
For obvious reasons, we are seriously considering moving to Canada, although neither of us has ever lived there (well, actually Tom_Scud did as a small child when his dad was a doctoral student at McGill). The one thing that gives us the most pause is the job market. Neither of us is thrilled at the thought of starting over in our 50s, but we would be less reluctant if we knew we could find jobs, and what we are reading seems pretty dire. Of course the job market varies by location, field, education/experience, etc. - we are tentatively considering Ontario (not Toronto) for proximity to family in the U.S., unless one of us finds a job elsewhere first.
What’s the job market like near you for people like us? He is an editor, and I am a U.S. immigration paralegal - although I would love to switch gears to something else for obvious reasons. Canadian immigration, maybe? Global mobility/HR? We really don’t know where to start, and it seems too early to actually start job-hunting if we don’t know when his application will be approved. We have savings to hold ourselves over, but of course don’t want to be unemployed forever, and age discrimination is a real thing.
Can’t comment specifically on the job market, but I would think that your skills would translate well to Canada generally, since we have a large immigrant population, especially in Ontario. There are also Canadians who want to move to the States. More than that I couldn’t say.
You might want to stay away from the Canadian automobile manufacturing industry.
Unless you are both fluently bilingual in French and English, stay away from Quebec. When I moved to Montreal in 1968 I took a French course, but never followed up and now I regret it dearly and am really too old to achieve the level of fluency needed to function effectively here. I think the most active job market is in Alberta (AKA Texas North) but it is one of the coldest. I still remember a small snowfall in the first week of September in Calgary one year.
I’m not Canadian, but I once read an article that said many employers discriminate against applicants who do not have “Canadian Experience.”
We don’t plan to move to Quebec, and they have a MUCH longer immigration pathway anyway! Last I checked, they aren’t even accepting new spousal applications until 2026.
These days, not as many as before. I have done numerous work visas and green cards for Canadians over the years, but given the current situation, even some longtime corporate clients are telling us that their staff don’t want to transfer to the U.S.
I queried my eldest kid @elfbabe since she has lived in Canada for 2 decades now, a citizen for over a decade, and has lived and worked in Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver. She states:
At their age and level of career establishment, they need to be farming their own personal professional connections with anyone in their fields working in Canada. But here’s my take: she’s a US immigration paralegal; there are firms in Canada specializing in US immigration specifically that might be able to use that experience, so I’d recommend she look into that. Find those firms and see if they are hiring paralegals. He’s an editor; that covers an enormous range of possible subfields/specialties, but his best bet is probably remote jobs. Just find a job that’s global-remote or North America-remote; they won’t care if he’s living in the US or in Canada.
Lots of people live in Canada and work remotely for US companies. It’s a way to offshore that gets you fluent English speakers in your time zone but is still lower priced than paying Americans in USD.
Wait till at least one of them gets a job, then go there. Unless “there” is metro Vancouver, metro Victoria, the GTA, or Quebec. The first three because the high cost of living will make it harder for them to live even temporarily off of one income; the last one because getting English-only jobs in Quebec is heavily dependent on your field and your personal connections.
Hope that might add something to the discussion.
It does, but I already knew a bunch of that. I am going to have to do quite a bit of networking, because I don’t want to stay in my current niche field for many of the same reasons we want to move to Canada. My boss even suggested a few firms in Canada, but I am at a point in life where I feel like I need a change for a bunch of different reasons. One thought was to ping the attorney who filed the lawsuit that led to my being granted Canadian citizenship and see what he has to say 
I have done many a U.S. work visa for Canadians who started as remote Canada-based employees, and then the U.S. employer decided to bring them on full-time in the U.S., so I certainly know that’s a thing that happens.
Other than that, Tom_Scud could likely get some amount of freelance work from his current employer, but not enough to support us, for sure. He hasn’t done freelance in quite a while, so he would either need to rebuild his client base, get a regular FT job, or both.
At some point we are going to have to decide when to pull the trigger, I guess. The (Canadian) friend who is responsible for us meeting each other didn’t seem to think we’d have issues finding jobs when we saw her in May, but she has been a Canadian government employee for her entire career and hasn’t had to look for a job in decades. I have never had a full-time job outside the Chicago area, so finding a job in a place where I am not living and have essentially no professional network is going to be a bit of a learning curve.
If you’re from Nigeria or Vietnam, yes, they will be concerned that your banking and commercial experience is not going to be relevant. But not if your experience was in the USA, UK or Germany or indeed if it was at Unilever Philippines, for example.
Why not just aggressively search for jobs, with a plan to move if/when you get one?
I agree with the person who said it will be helpful to work all the personal connections you have.
Because I don’t want to move without my husband, and it will probably be at least a few more months until he has permanent residence. And then we have to figure out what to do with our house, etc.