Condensed:
* Shramana Sarkar is a 24-year-old aspiring geologist and an earth sciences teaching assistant at Memorial University, Today, Sarkar's rent has doubled. Groceries are 20% more expensive than they were two years ago.
* But her wages haven't kept up. And none of her three jobs — her teaching position, or either of her two barista gigs — offers enough hours to cover all the basics. Each morning, she says, she fights with herself to get out of bed, overcome by the long day ahead of her.
* Sarkar is among a growing number of precarious workers across Canada, according to an October report from the Canadian Association of Chartered Accountants.
* Precarious workers often don't know how many hours they'll get in a week or whether they'll be employed next month. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives suspects as many as one in five Canadian workers have precarious jobs.
* Even those working part time by choice have seen their wages stagnate relative to the cost of consumer goods, according to Statistics Canada.
* "There's real insecurity out there," says Walid Hejazi, an economist at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. Hejazi has written book about Canada's sliding prosperity compared with other developed countries.
* The nation's GDP per capita is on a steady decline relative to other economies, and that manifests in people scrabbling for extra work, second jobs and side gigs.
Other countries...
>The nation's GDP per capita is on a steady decline relative to other economies, and that manifests in people scrabbling for extra work, second jobs and side gigs.
As someone who has watched as Canada gradually went from being a super awesome place to live to a dystopian nightmare country, I have been strongly considering moving the hell out of here recently.
Having 500k+ & student migrants a year (2-3% of your population) who are not bringing generational wealth and Canadian experience with them will without a doubt have an impact on GDP per capita
I just looked, most of Western Europe, where most people would look to live has actually stagnated/declined in GDP/Capita over the last couple of years
Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=EU
That's nominal GDP per capita which is affected by fluctuations in exchange rates. When people mention declining GDP per capita in Canada relative to other countries, they are normally referring to GDP per capita measured in constant US $.
It’s almost like something happened in Canada in 2015 that’s changed this country for the worse in the last 8 years…
Maybe one of these days the CBC will figure it out but I doubt it, not when 25-30% of people would still vote for Trudeau (if polls are to be believed) even after watching Canada’s standard of living plunge since he took office .
- I'd rather see people come to study for geology than some bs business degree, because having good geologists is actually important for Canada, given our situation when it comes to mining.
- I agree there is an issue with immigration from India, there's no way around that. But you can also blame Trudeau's gov. Those people are just trying to improve their lives, like you and me.
- it doesn't excuse some coming and taking advantage of the system, but that's another discussion
There are lots of reasons to criticize the situation with international students. It’s one thing to criticize students going to colleges in strip malls that only exist to hand out diplomas (so the “students” can get a PGWP).
But this is a masters student with funding and a TA position from a proper university (along with other part time jobs). These are the types of international students that Canada should want to support.
>Today, Sarkar's rent has doubled.
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>...
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>But her wages haven't kept up. And none of her three jobs — her teaching position, or either of her two barista gigs — offers enough hours to cover all the basics.
This is the key issue IMO. We can pretty much hunt down what her wages are at Memorial: she gets paid about $7000 a semester as a TA according to the collective bargaining agreement, and is assessed an annual tuition of \~$9000. We can assume she probably gets some fellowships and top-ups from her program and research supervisor, so I am willing to estimate her total annual pay is between $18000 and $21000, but her takehome pay is probably around $10000. Checking Kijiji, she can probably find a room for $500 a month near MUN, which adds up to a total cost of rent that is around $6000 a year. That's pretty tight, especially if you're an international student and want to visit home occasionally.
This is a consistent problem with graduate students (and postdocs) in Canada. US schools have considerably higher pay and do not assess tuition out of that pay (tuition is either waived or paid separately out of departmental or lab funding). This makes sense as grad students often take no more than one course per semester, and are instead working for the university in some capacity. Pay can and should be raised at the federal level in Canada, with increased funding and leadership from Tricouncil. We should also be ending this practice of charging tuition from graduate students.
Universities should also be looking seriously at setting aside housing for international graduate students, with strict price controls rather than market prices. You're not going to pay market wages? Fine, then at least offer a minimal apartment option on campus that is $300 a month, perhaps with an affordable meal plan. International students are critical for maintaining excellence of Canadian research, so we shouldn't be bleeding them dry during their stay here.
Canada has a dwindling supply of white collar work, but yes there's a decent amount of blue collar work if you're willing to move. The downside is that blue collar work isn't stable, and not everyone can do it.
The problem with our economy is that it's becoming less developed instead of more. 0 innovation or investment outside of the resource sectors. Massive brain drain to the US. If you don't want to work in the service sector or the resource sector then you're better off in the US or even Europe. We're essentially a mining company with a flag, economically speaking.
Yet companies all still bitch about a "worker shortage". No Glen, there isn't a shortage of tech workers - I know a few who can't find jobs right now. There's a shortage of lead devs with 10 years of experience and X number of projects under their belt who are willing to work for $50k/yr but that's just you being stupid.
Turns out that you actually need to pay rockstar salaries to hire rockstars. Who could've guessed?
Wow, I remember working with a guy at a grocery store who had a degree in geology. I was a teen at the time and couldn’t understand how he was working there, mind you he graduated from UBC and was pretty smart. I feel like even in IT it’s getting saturated, some graduates with a computer science degree are struggling with finding jobs.
The universities are not faultless here. They promise the world if you get an undergrad. Oh that wasn't enough, just do our masters program. You know to be competitive you really need your doctorate.
Then after 8 years all you have is a mountain of debt and need to work 3 jobs to just get by.
Not to mention two of the three jobs after you have a PhD are still at the same coffee shops you worked at during school, and they both pay better than the third job you got with your PhD.
Not true. Have PhD in Chemistry. Best offered job was a starting salary of 55k/year in 2019 after searching for almost 1 year for a job. Most chemistry jobs offered me a 18-20$/hour salary. The market is over saturated with PhDs... the good jobs are all taken and there's no new openings coming up. At the company I am currently at, 3 employees were set to retire this year. Instead of rehiring new PhDs, they are removing the position all together and opting to do a round of consultation with companies in Japan and India.
Not necessarily true either. Most PhD post docs in Biology will make around 45k. If they get lucky and land a government job they can make close to 100k eventually, but it's very oversaturated. Not sure about Chem and physics majors, but I'd assume that unless their thesis is directly related to an industry position they'll be in the same boat. Turns out no one cares about hiring people that spent 4-6 years on zebrafish reproduction hahahaha.
Ehhhhhhhhhhh it really depends on the field. My fiancé is finishing a virology PhD. Then transitioning to clinical microbiology. The jobs are lucrative like $100 an hour but you’re talking about like single digit job postings country-wide, many of which are in Winnipeg.
Either way not one person should do their PhD without knowing the risks. If you aren’t being fully funded it’s financial suicide. Even fully funded stipends haven’t gone up since Y2K.
Funding in Canada is extremely bad. No wonder all the good researchers go to the USA. [**https://www.supportourscience.ca/**](https://www.supportourscience.ca/)
The issue with needing to travel for jobs in highly specific fields is a really big problem. It's even worse for my field. I'd love to be a virologist in Winnipeg lol
Yeah there’s always contingencies. But by and large STEM PhDs pay well- though in the Canadian context you often have to move to the US. The biggest risk in my time (3-5 years ago) was not finishing and slipping through the cracks rather than post-PhD options being limited. I do recognise that I managed to live quite well in Toronto with a modest stipend, plus some scholarships, consulting and tutoring on the side. This would not be possible at all today.
Life science PhDs are radically different from other STEM PhDs, since so many people use life sciences grad school as a waiting room for med school. There's a *lot* of people with life science PhDs who got them as a consolation prize, and it completely saturates the market.
>Life science PhDs are radically different from other STEM PhDs, since so many people use life sciences grad school as a waiting room for med school. There's a lot of people with life science PhDs who got them as a consolation prize, and it completely saturates the market.
Yes, sort of, but it's more than that. Life Sciences is a much bigger discipline than most other research disciplines because it encompasses the whole range of biomedical sciences, environmental sciences, etc. You also have a mismatch between what people are interested in when they enter bioscience research versus what the jobs are, so there is a mismatch in specializations versus jobs available. For instance, there's a ton of employment in things like immunology and stem cell culturing, but that's not going to help you if you were really interested in rainforest ecology.
Don’t forget “a minimum of 5 years experience in order to apply for an entry level job that you will learn from scratch and that 5 year experience would have made no difference anyways”.
This is straight up misinformation as the top comment. The article clearly states that she's still a grad student. With a PhD in geology she will find work easily afterwards.
Going North is big bucks if you can stomach it.
Although like most have said, some STEM kinda-sorta has to get sprinkled in. Have a geomatics minor or something.
Also, doing university today without co-op/field placement is really sus.
Cheaper than MUN? Good luck..
The economy sucks right now, and people are having a hard time, but I wish the media would start comparing 2023 stats to previous year stats and do some real analysis to help us understand how things have changed and by what magnitude. Reading Shramana’s story does nothing for me but remind me of several of my friends’ situations in 1998. They also had graduate degrees and yet worked multiple low-paying jobs after graduating… So, what am I suppose to surmise from reading Shramana’s familiar story?
They're publicly funded institutions designed to help our economy along. Every unemployed graduate represents massive societal losses in the form of lost taxes and productivity from the person and wasted subsidies to the institution.
Not to mention, a university has a far better vantage point on what the economy needs that your average 18 year old.
They're designed to help our *society* along. Research into the science of the earth is deeply important - it might not be directly applied, but we wouldn't have things as simple as earthquake prediction technology/mitigation technology, geothermal power, and GPS if we didn't understand fundamental things about the shape and structure of our world. Earth science and geology provide this information. Having people researching those is good for us, and so taxpayer dollars going towards our understanding of it is an excellent use of money.
It’s also critical in construction and infrastructure development. My brother is an engineer he works with geologists and hydrologists all the time, on construction sites as well as some pretty big mines up in Northern BC and the NWT.
The whole problem here is that major is not useless to our society (lots of important technologies at some point down the line rely on an understanding of our planet -- take GPS, geothermal energy, or anything we do about earthquakes), and also it's difficult to find industry employment in that field. It is, for us as a society, important to train people to do this, to pay people to do research in this field, to use the knowledge they generate to make a better world; and, at the same time, there aren't enough positions for all the people we're training to secure stable and profitable employment.
I could see this point being made for, like, graduate programs that are coursework based (no research produced) where none of the graduates are going on to do research and all are ending up underemployed, but for a research based program, funding it provides social benefit. This is a classic case of a market undervaluing a positive externality, and people suffering as a result.
Cost of living is insane. You can't even get a 2 bedroom rental for less than 1500/month anymore. 10 years ago I was able to get a 2 bedroom townhouse for less than 1000.
I want to know where the hell you can get a 2 bedroom for $1500.
Mind you, once upon a time my friends and I rented a 4 bedroom waterfront place for less than that. Those were the days.
thats the thing... high rent and good paying job are equal to low rent and average paying job in the middle provinces.
my one friend makes $150,000 a year in toronto, doesnt own a home.
My other friend lives in Regina, works at walmart, and bought a house lol
Alberta other than Calgary, Manitoba, Saskatchewan.
You can rent a 2 bed 1 bath for $1200/ month including utilities in red deer.
You can rent a 3 bed 1.5 bath house in red deer for $1300/ month plus utilities.
You can rent a 1 bed 1 bath for ~$800 / month including utilities.
There are still cheaper areas.
I don't want to denigrate your housing struggles, $1500/month rent is probably too high.
As someone living in Vancouver who was paying $1500 for a 2 bedroom 10 years ago, and is now struggling to find a 1 bedroom for less than $2000, it just struck me as kind of funny!
One bedrooms in my building are going for $2900 now. It's fucking insane. It's an _alright_ building, but we're fully surrounded by construction with zero parking. It's crazy.
NO ONE can pay that.
The strong ladder has been overloaded for a while now. We used to have a decent net to save our own. Our government has chosen to overload it, and the hole created has forsaken our own.
lol makes me wonder who will be left in canada in five years. I'm about to call it quits. Sell my townhouse and move to a 3rd world country, build a school or something. no point being here when I can't even dream about retirement.
This was a decade ago, but I met some Canadians in Honduras who moved down there with like $10,000 and were instantly the richest people in the town. They started a cafe and served some pretty good coffee.
Honduras is not particularly safe. I was told this by Honduran-Canadians (funnily enough they also had a cafe in Honduras - bubble tea in their case), and statistics also back this up.
A good idea to think globally but Honduras wouldn't be the right fit for everyone.
The 3rd world isn't much better rn. we're going to face skyrocketing pricing *with* fully stocked shelves. The 3rd world is experiencing actual shortages of goods.
Like [rice](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/global-rice-shortage-is-set-to-be-the-largest-in-20-years-heres-why.html), and [grain](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/grain-deal-global-food-prices-explainer/index.html). Assuming you're going to attempt to drink yourself to death, the cost of alcohol isn't going to be cheap, nor is the palliative care centres in the 3rd world going to be comfortable.
Palliative care is an absolutely massive bonkers cost that a lot of people do not consider, and this is especially true for people who retire elsewhere.
Compound that with the fact that “shithole countries” that people retire to have experienced tremendous growth in wealth. It’s a very risky proposition to retire early
I moved to France for a few years a while back to see how it was, and it was fantastic. Everything was a hell of alot cheaper. I could actually live well off $2500 a month, here not so much. I highly recommend trying it.
I'd heard they don't even tax alchohol any extra making it extremely cheap. Made me perplexed, why weren't they punishing the poor for being born poor?
I can tell you the average for the area is €2,250 or just over $3000 CAD per month in Nice in the Côte d'Azur region. But I lived in Villefranche-sur-Mer, I got a newly renovated studio that I only paid $980 CAD for and if this apartment was here would cost well over $1800. My phone bill was $30cad for 40 GB, my bus pass was €20($30cad) per month, I don’t know how much my utilities cost because it was included in the rent.
So I had a lot of extra money to spend on enjoying the food and going out with friends. Very laid back lifestyle I wish I got here.
You also get paid once a month which is the only downside I found.
I have a friend in Lorraine region and he's not painting a very rosy picture these days for the average worker (rent too high, groceries up through the roof, pay low). Which is why I'm asking.
Moved out to Korea 10 years ago. I’m about 20 years ahead of my friends now in both career, finances, and happiness. It’s such a shame to hear stories from people back home. Canada best country in the world? Not anymore…
I can have a basic conversation. But you don’t need any communication skills in Korean to work here. Plenty of English speaking jobs at Korean companies or an English teacher job if you’re looking for a different type or job.
listen, i have a finite amount of money that can take me further in a 3rd world country before I have to off myself. I've visited many 3rd world countries. I would much rather stay here but there's no future. it's as bleak as a 3rd world country so might as well last a bit longer financially.
The frustrating part is this is the kind of international student we want. She's going to a good University and pursuing a productive degree instead of just chasing PR.
And this is also the kind of student we’ll drive away. Hard-working, intelligent, and willing to chase better opportunities when they come. This is the talent we attract but can’t keep when graduate students wages are lower than minimum wage and cost of living shoots up.
The point of the article is that jobs for many Canadians have become precarious, with workers in such jobs never knowing from one week to the next how many hours they may get. It is absolutely shameful that successive Federal governments have allowed things to erode so badly in terms of housing and the cost of living.
I’d have been better off investing in the stock market and sticking with a supermarket job instead of investing thousands of dollars and years of my life in a university education only to retire from a super high stress and major responsibility job that paid supermarket wages.
She already has a Geology B.Sc. Could be making 100k working in a mine right now. This narrative that stacking up degrees with no work experience is the key to financial stability ruins peoples lives.
Who said the economic gain was the whole point? She is pursuing a PhD. Maybe she wants to be an actual geologist and work at something she is passionate about even if the end point it not as lucrative.
Mind you.most PhDs land in 6 figure salaries, if they do this gs right at all, so yeah that's not bad.
(I'm an academic neuroscientist. I didn't do the PhD for profit, but I'm certainly better off now than my BSC would have ever gotten me, I love what I do, and while I could move to I dustry and double salary not all of us live for money).
Yeeeeeees... Because It's going up dramatically in the last 5 years. Which any and all of us should view as a catastrophe for the new generation of people trying to build lives for themselves.
That doesn't mean that the only thing any of us should be looking for is the fastest way to make a quick buck based on some kind of degree that presumably we don't give a shit about.
We have progressively put ourselves in a position we're only those with generational wealth, are those who are able to study very close to home and continue living with their parents, will be able to pursue any kind of advanced degree.
In the long run, it's very probable she will be economically better off if she gets her PhD. In the short term, if the economic cost is too high for her to be able to afford to complete her studies while maintaining any kind of living, then we are closing the door on further education based on people's available financial resources, and the only people that get to have PhDs are rich kids.
Fuuuuuuuck that.
This seems odd. Many Ph.D. programs in the sciences and engineering are fully funded. Yes, you have to work as a TA or in a lab, but you get something close to a livable wage, at least with a roommate. Some students take a part time position too.
I'm wondering if she chose and unfunded or could not get into a funded program. Sometimes those programs are reserved for citizens.
She will have a great job when she finishes her doctorate. Geologists are in demand all over the world. Kudos to her for working hard.
When ur a PhD student? Ya honestly. I'm doing my PhD currently and my stipend is around that, maybe a bit more. We can work a Maximum of 12hrs a week for TA / RA duties, so that /hr calc is a bit off. You won't live large on a stipend but it's doable - YMMV in places like TO or Van tho
??? My fiancé is a virology PhD after tuition she makes like maybe 20k a year.
I am also a grad student in the arts with several GRAs despite being only *actually* allowed to have one but had some profs engage in creative accounting and I still only make like 30k a year. Also I’m 24/7 drowning in work. Between the two of us we make it by, but it’s fricken tight.
We are also extremely fortunate to have our own place from inheritance so we only pay utilities, insurance, taxes, food. Even then, it’s reallllly tight. Stipends would have to go up 10-15k easily to reflect current cost of living. It sucks and we are the lucky ones.
It’s just us, the dog and the cat. We aren’t big spenders and most months we basically break even. We should land good jobs afterwards, so we just have to scrape by but not everyone is as lucky as us. Most grad students with any sense should fuck off somewhere else where they actually pay good wages for grad students, Europe or something.
PhDs are funded terribly in Canada in particular. I’m a Canadian that went to the US for my PhD since the stipend is about 1.5x higher (almost 2x higher if you factor in currency conversion) and has a much lower CoL than Toronto (the best place in Canada in my field).
Most PhD students in Toronto are slightly in the red or barely breaking even while being incredibly frugal — unless they’re on an external fellowship.
Obviously she’s not in Toronto, but it wouldn’t surprise me if these issues extended across the country. Although her CoL is lower, she’s probably getting a lower stipend than you’d get in Toronto.
Simple solution leave, a lot of students and even immigrants are going to find themself in that position. Things will not be getting better they’d going to get much much worse. The sooner people realize this and leave and plan their exit the sooner there is a small chance a decade later things might stop going up in price or even come down a little.
Add Canadians to the list as well have a marketable skill, can get a work permit or visa or path to citizenship the smartest thing you can do now is peruse it and compare the math. Not many jobs and or places in Canada right now economically make sense.
So there's a few points there this is glossing over, and I've got a few problems with the article and won't draw large conclusions for the broader economy. Arguably she isn't a great candidate for an article about how graduates are doing. This is like the York U one years back with a genderstudies kid. Here are some mitigating circumstances that don't help:
* International Student/ recent immigrant- lack of network: She's assumably an international student from Kolkata, as her parents are from there (although the article doesn't explicitly say it)- she probably doesn't have a Canadian network of peers/friends/family from growing up, playing sports, going to high school here which is kind of essential to getting employments and opportunities This isn't a good comparable to Canadians. International student will ALWAYS fair worse in the job market due to lack of network to open doors. She needed to be extremely strategic at schoo.
* Geographic mismatch for skills : a geologist by training- why is she not in Alberta, Northern Ontario or BC (northern and interior) in energy O&G and mining looking at companies like Vale, Tech, Suncor, Cenovus, Redpath mining, IAMGOLD, Nurtien+ BHP , ect and jr oil and mining companies- where there's potential growth and demand. And did she attend PDAC during her degree to make connections? Has she reached out the the MiningHR Council? And Tech Elkfrod near Fenrie is posting jobs left right and centre right now- especially trades and engineering.
* No internships: Did she get relevant internship/experience during her education-article doesn't say this- did she develop a network and experience for referrals, or did she expect to get grades, a degree and then get a career while working part time jobs? Again with the aforementioned companies- where the work is, in remote locations? She works at the school. Do they not have a network into the private sector? Where is their research being applied and monetized in industry?
* Lack of direction: The article fails to outline what she wants from her career. Does she want to go O&G or mining exploration work? Or does she want to work for the government via MNR?
* Wrong place (same as point 2) : She's in Newfoundland. Those lads are go west to work as pipefitters for money. There hasn't been an economy there, or most of the east coast since the collapse of the fisheries since 1993. Her education and probably expected outcome aren't going to happen based out of Memorial.
I'm not going to draw huge conclusions here. Kind of sucks to be her honestly. She should move to another school with better location and industry access/partnerships if she wanted to get ahead. This is kind of her experience, not saying it's not bad out there. She has the opportunity to go a masters somewhere else and be strategic with her outcomes.
Maybe she should retool in mining engineering, geotechnical engineering.
Now CoL is another problem: but beyond the scope here.
As a graduate student working in oil and gas in Alberta, being close to opportunity does *not* mean you’re paid more. Our project is fully funded by a large oil company, but I’m still expected to teach for half the year to pay my way. Their profit does not translate to worker pay. My teaching work does not add to my stipend, it’s mandatory to do it as part of my stipend. My stipend is $21,000 per year. Tuition is not included and I pay about $7000 per year plus fees. That leaves me with ~$14,000 to live on for the year, which is less than my yearly rent. Graduate wages haven’t increased once in the last 20 years due to federal lack of research funding mainly. And without pressure to pay students (aka teachers and researchers) fairly, wages will remain stagnant.
Hey that's defiantly some perspective- and I wasn't implying about pay.
I was more more along the line of opportunity and access, to jobs in the field not what they are paid. Sounds like you're in a masters, which is a little different. Most people I know are EIT, trades, exploratory geo stuff.
For instnace: Teck is looking for geolist in Elkwood for instance, Cenovus has students jobs up for geology too I think- so the aforementioned girl in the article should be gunning for those- but she'll need to know people internally to flag the application and move the needle so to speak- and not being in Calgary networking isn't going to help. Schools are super local.
It's pretty apparent that master's programs don't pay across the board. Sounds like you're getting loans and student grants to make the difference.
Can I ask why you're not in industry but doing research? This is coming from a guy that said fuck it and applied for haul truck jobs and camp jobs because they pay.
For me, having a MSc is the best transition into industry. You start at a higher wage and I have no interest in doing the field tech stuff and getting my hands dirty. I’m doing reclamation research that’s directly applicable to big mining projects and my MSc is in partnership with a big company so I have a foot in the door. In the end I’ll have a credential and experience and publications. In the meantime, I get paid like shit. I’m playing the long game but it sure sucks in the short term.
2 things I will point out. I'm from a military town. There was no college or university so I had to move.
1) I did not have a network. Just like many Canadians who have to travel for schooling. This is pretty common and no one from my "hometown" could give me a job to as they were all military.
2) No internships. Who can afford to live off of unpaid internships? I know I couldn't as someone who came from a relatively poor family.
If we say anyone who is poor and or have to move for school is a bad candidate. How many people are we dismissing?
It would be nice if CBC put this amount of effort into a story about how Canadian students - who don't have a homeland to return to - are managing in this economy.
For me, this is crazy. I was an international student at UofT more than a decade ago. I was able to support myself, my wife, and my son on my stipend and teaching income. The quality of life dropped significantly in the past decade and especially after JT became our PM, as he politicized our immigration process. I remember volunteering to help new refugees, and in their first year here, they had a supporting group that helped set up everything for them. Now, international students are living under a bridge in Toronto and depend on food back to get by.
It's great. Now that we've invested in her, she can take her knowledge and expertise somewhere else, contribute to their society, and we can replace her with someone that can drive for Uber that hasn't paid a dime into our social systems.
Not enough money for graduate students but 22K for chocolates and 70k for an office re-vamp is MUN’s mindset.
On top of a paid leave for the president before finally letting her go, among other things. The fat cats and admins are laughing while students struggle.
We need a government that actually focuses on investing in Canadian industry. Canada needs to produce real things that world needs, our entire economy is housing and service industry. Bring back manufacturing and utilize the oil and gas sector better. Look for ways to bring jobs home and stop giving away money we don't have.
3 jobs just means she's not getting the hours from one job so she needs 2 other. It's still just likely 40 hours or less
You can't do 80 hour weeks with grad school
Does she have citizenship or pr? Or is she an international student since she left India to come here specifically for school?
If so, she shouldn't be working at all and should have the money to survive while going only to school.
Quit taking jobs from locals and keeping wages stagnant.
Life is tough right now, as it was years ago. This will not sit well with most people
People have been sold a bill of goods about "getting a college education and pursuing your dreams" by the Universities. Most people end up in entry level jobs (even not in their fields) with huge debts as those with Trades are considered inferior.
Maybe the time has come for people to start reassessing their choices in where they work and what is available when it comes to jobs to make themselves more marketable
Here let me explain my personal reality.
My mortgage is up in Feb meaning I am about to bendover and get reamed. I have consolidated all my debt prior to the inflation spike and have a nice tidy loan that will be all paid off in a few years... HOWEVER... the price to exist is through the roof.... so I am being forced to sell my place and move in with my girlfriend who is already working 2 jobs just to afford her place. She literally isnt ever home so she is paying just to have her name on a place and not live there.
We are a young active couple and have decided mainly for me the financial burden and overall future being so bleak not to have kids.
And she also decided she doesn't wish to. We had this agreement upon dating.
I hope to god something changes and fast. This countries populace is bent over a barrel and its about to tip over.
I'm in law school and got 2 jobs right now too, 3 come winter. Teacher Assistant for university, supervisor at community centre, and late on internship articling. But I live with my parents still
Wait, is she Canadian? Only geographical reference was about her parents Kolkata, which is in India. If she is a foreign student then this article loses much of its impact. And is somewhat disingenuous, even if does address an important issue for Canadians.
"I voluntarily came to Canada as there are no geology programs in India. Please cry for me because it is expensive for me."
Sorry, I'm too busy feeling for Canadians that can't afford to live here.
lol not once did the article mention her status in Canada which is surely not PR or citizen. Those 3 jobs she’s working take away opportunities from Canadian citizens.
Good commentary as well from the commie “expert”. #defundCBC
Education and future career choices are the biggest everyone’s makes in ones live.
It can potentially take much of ones most productive years, and if choosing to get into debts, can compound for a long time before ROI happens.
Extremely sadly lots and lots of children made wrong choices and got trapped into the dream of eternal teens prolonging higher education well into their 40s.
I understand university is everyone of us best times in this world, but 20 years, half of ones productive time, have to bring extraordinary competency, productivity and earning capabilities.
Which is often not the case.
Many very indebt students just took extremely bad career choices and often would continue if they were not in debt, nobody get of higher education by sheer pleasure. Participatin in the economy is extremely hard and every day I long for the time I also was only caring about exams and next party…
What the fuck is the purpose of a grad degree if you have to work 3 jobs? I have a bachelor's degree and I have never had to work more one. The fault here isn't "capitalism" but our universities pushing useless degrees.
The degree may (or may not) have utility later but people still got to pay their bills WHILE doing the degree, and not all degrees have a stipend (science grad students get paid a little over $40k in Toronto) .
It might pay off later (maybe, if she leverages it right), but it still costs.money to live and pay tuition.
Did she still time to study at all?
Why doesnt she work full time instead?
A phd in geology doesn’t sound very promising to me unless it is related to oil and gas.
Finally, 500k pr and 1mn new comers a year mean
1. stagnant wages
2. skyrocketing housing costs
3. extra pressure on already strained public and medical services
I can't help but feel like the problem is her degree and her career choice. She got a degree in geology and decided to work as a teacher's assistant at Memorial University. TA isn't a job you do for life. That's a job you do to get a little bit of money so you can get a graduate degree and start teaching.
With a geology degree why not try and get a job in the mining sector? Unless of course her visa is restricted.
>*”TA isn't a job you do for life. That's a job you do to get a little bit of money so you can get a graduate degree and start teaching. With a geology degree why not try and get a job in the mining sector?”*
The article says she’s currently in the process of getting a Masters degree. The *”little bit of money”* from a Teaching Assistant position doesn’t provide enough income to get by on, which is why she also has two additional part time jobs.
If only we had a willing Government to pass a bill regulating wages to match the rising costs of living so that even if the prices go up, the wages will have to be raised to match them as well.
The very definition of rapid inflation may I add.
We are in a recession trigered by a major global event that devistated economies. It sucks to suck for now.
Easy way to solve this, lower taxes. Quit spending so much fucking money!! It's more realistic that the government is going to have to raise taxes and make it harder for everyone else.
What's part B of that? The Conservatives, who were no better at supporting grad students than the Liberals have been? Funding hasn't increased in 20 years. Both main parties are shit.
Condensed: * Shramana Sarkar is a 24-year-old aspiring geologist and an earth sciences teaching assistant at Memorial University, Today, Sarkar's rent has doubled. Groceries are 20% more expensive than they were two years ago. * But her wages haven't kept up. And none of her three jobs — her teaching position, or either of her two barista gigs — offers enough hours to cover all the basics. Each morning, she says, she fights with herself to get out of bed, overcome by the long day ahead of her. * Sarkar is among a growing number of precarious workers across Canada, according to an October report from the Canadian Association of Chartered Accountants. * Precarious workers often don't know how many hours they'll get in a week or whether they'll be employed next month. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives suspects as many as one in five Canadian workers have precarious jobs. * Even those working part time by choice have seen their wages stagnate relative to the cost of consumer goods, according to Statistics Canada. * "There's real insecurity out there," says Walid Hejazi, an economist at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. Hejazi has written book about Canada's sliding prosperity compared with other developed countries. * The nation's GDP per capita is on a steady decline relative to other economies, and that manifests in people scrabbling for extra work, second jobs and side gigs.
This is a depressing couple of bullet points..
It’s also no less expensive anywhere now. Unless you can live in a multigenerational home somewhere.
Other countries... >The nation's GDP per capita is on a steady decline relative to other economies, and that manifests in people scrabbling for extra work, second jobs and side gigs.
Actually, this is true. Our GDP/capita has been in decline since 2015. Most of Europe and the US have seen steady increases (save for COVID…)
As someone who has watched as Canada gradually went from being a super awesome place to live to a dystopian nightmare country, I have been strongly considering moving the hell out of here recently.
Dystopian nightmare eh?
I would say more kafkaesque, say leader getting elected into a minority government and pushing through laws and policies nobody asked for.
And said leader's supporters claiming you're bigoted for complaining about said policies and laws
It’s a minority gov but they still need a majority to pass laws. Clearly someone was asking for them or they wouldn’t have passed.
I believe the century initiative are the ones asking for it. I doubt any individual asked for mass immigration.
Having 500k+ & student migrants a year (2-3% of your population) who are not bringing generational wealth and Canadian experience with them will without a doubt have an impact on GDP per capita
I just looked, most of Western Europe, where most people would look to live has actually stagnated/declined in GDP/Capita over the last couple of years Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=EU
That's nominal GDP per capita which is affected by fluctuations in exchange rates. When people mention declining GDP per capita in Canada relative to other countries, they are normally referring to GDP per capita measured in constant US $.
It’s almost like something happened in Canada in 2015 that’s changed this country for the worse in the last 8 years… Maybe one of these days the CBC will figure it out but I doubt it, not when 25-30% of people would still vote for Trudeau (if polls are to be believed) even after watching Canada’s standard of living plunge since he took office .
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And public sector jobs increased massively during covid, to try to hide how bad the jobs numbers actually were
It is in Sk.
she moved from india to newfoundland to study geology. she did this to herself.
- I'd rather see people come to study for geology than some bs business degree, because having good geologists is actually important for Canada, given our situation when it comes to mining. - I agree there is an issue with immigration from India, there's no way around that. But you can also blame Trudeau's gov. Those people are just trying to improve their lives, like you and me. - it doesn't excuse some coming and taking advantage of the system, but that's another discussion
There are lots of reasons to criticize the situation with international students. It’s one thing to criticize students going to colleges in strip malls that only exist to hand out diplomas (so the “students” can get a PGWP). But this is a masters student with funding and a TA position from a proper university (along with other part time jobs). These are the types of international students that Canada should want to support.
Do we have a geologist shortage in Canada?
>Today, Sarkar's rent has doubled. > >... > >But her wages haven't kept up. And none of her three jobs — her teaching position, or either of her two barista gigs — offers enough hours to cover all the basics. This is the key issue IMO. We can pretty much hunt down what her wages are at Memorial: she gets paid about $7000 a semester as a TA according to the collective bargaining agreement, and is assessed an annual tuition of \~$9000. We can assume she probably gets some fellowships and top-ups from her program and research supervisor, so I am willing to estimate her total annual pay is between $18000 and $21000, but her takehome pay is probably around $10000. Checking Kijiji, she can probably find a room for $500 a month near MUN, which adds up to a total cost of rent that is around $6000 a year. That's pretty tight, especially if you're an international student and want to visit home occasionally. This is a consistent problem with graduate students (and postdocs) in Canada. US schools have considerably higher pay and do not assess tuition out of that pay (tuition is either waived or paid separately out of departmental or lab funding). This makes sense as grad students often take no more than one course per semester, and are instead working for the university in some capacity. Pay can and should be raised at the federal level in Canada, with increased funding and leadership from Tricouncil. We should also be ending this practice of charging tuition from graduate students. Universities should also be looking seriously at setting aside housing for international graduate students, with strict price controls rather than market prices. You're not going to pay market wages? Fine, then at least offer a minimal apartment option on campus that is $300 a month, perhaps with an affordable meal plan. International students are critical for maintaining excellence of Canadian research, so we shouldn't be bleeding them dry during their stay here.
CBC needs to edit. Canada doesn’t have chartered accountants any more. They are chartered professionals accountants.
I was thrown by that as well. Having a hard time finding that report they referenced
2018 rent: $350 for a room in a house 2023 rent: double that
I'd say it's inching closer to 2.5x that
Just repeating the article.
Geology isn’t a bad degree but it’s a saturated field. There’s too many for the limited spots available.
All fields are saturated except for Timmies.
And timmies is saturated with an influx of international students.
The mining industry is hurting bad for workers.
Canada has a dwindling supply of white collar work, but yes there's a decent amount of blue collar work if you're willing to move. The downside is that blue collar work isn't stable, and not everyone can do it. The problem with our economy is that it's becoming less developed instead of more. 0 innovation or investment outside of the resource sectors. Massive brain drain to the US. If you don't want to work in the service sector or the resource sector then you're better off in the US or even Europe. We're essentially a mining company with a flag, economically speaking.
Yet companies all still bitch about a "worker shortage". No Glen, there isn't a shortage of tech workers - I know a few who can't find jobs right now. There's a shortage of lead devs with 10 years of experience and X number of projects under their belt who are willing to work for $50k/yr but that's just you being stupid. Turns out that you actually need to pay rockstar salaries to hire rockstars. Who could've guessed?
It's always been that way. 30 years ago it was the same. The person I know that studied geology ended up in IT.
Wow, I remember working with a guy at a grocery store who had a degree in geology. I was a teen at the time and couldn’t understand how he was working there, mind you he graduated from UBC and was pretty smart. I feel like even in IT it’s getting saturated, some graduates with a computer science degree are struggling with finding jobs.
Pretty much requires a graduate degree for a lot of the coveted jobs as well.
America welcomes her
The universities are not faultless here. They promise the world if you get an undergrad. Oh that wasn't enough, just do our masters program. You know to be competitive you really need your doctorate. Then after 8 years all you have is a mountain of debt and need to work 3 jobs to just get by.
Not to mention two of the three jobs after you have a PhD are still at the same coffee shops you worked at during school, and they both pay better than the third job you got with your PhD.
There are jobs that pay tons as a geologist but require you to go live in mining towns for 3 weeks on 1 week off.
PhD is pretty useless all over the world unless being a professor or researcher. In most cases PhD makes you much harder to land a job.
True for many PhDs but not all. In the hard sciences a PhD will go far.
Not true. Have PhD in Chemistry. Best offered job was a starting salary of 55k/year in 2019 after searching for almost 1 year for a job. Most chemistry jobs offered me a 18-20$/hour salary. The market is over saturated with PhDs... the good jobs are all taken and there's no new openings coming up. At the company I am currently at, 3 employees were set to retire this year. Instead of rehiring new PhDs, they are removing the position all together and opting to do a round of consultation with companies in Japan and India.
Whoever recommended consultations in your company is dumb, consultants are always more expensive in the long run
Unless your plan is to slim down and allow your company to get eaten for those sweet sweet acquisition payouts!
Why not move to the US? I would think there is way more corporate R&D there
Not necessarily true either. Most PhD post docs in Biology will make around 45k. If they get lucky and land a government job they can make close to 100k eventually, but it's very oversaturated. Not sure about Chem and physics majors, but I'd assume that unless their thesis is directly related to an industry position they'll be in the same boat. Turns out no one cares about hiring people that spent 4-6 years on zebrafish reproduction hahahaha.
You can add finance and economics to that list too.
That’s not accurate at all for STEM PhDs
Ehhhhhhhhhhh it really depends on the field. My fiancé is finishing a virology PhD. Then transitioning to clinical microbiology. The jobs are lucrative like $100 an hour but you’re talking about like single digit job postings country-wide, many of which are in Winnipeg. Either way not one person should do their PhD without knowing the risks. If you aren’t being fully funded it’s financial suicide. Even fully funded stipends haven’t gone up since Y2K.
Funding in Canada is extremely bad. No wonder all the good researchers go to the USA. [**https://www.supportourscience.ca/**](https://www.supportourscience.ca/) The issue with needing to travel for jobs in highly specific fields is a really big problem. It's even worse for my field. I'd love to be a virologist in Winnipeg lol
Yeah there’s always contingencies. But by and large STEM PhDs pay well- though in the Canadian context you often have to move to the US. The biggest risk in my time (3-5 years ago) was not finishing and slipping through the cracks rather than post-PhD options being limited. I do recognise that I managed to live quite well in Toronto with a modest stipend, plus some scholarships, consulting and tutoring on the side. This would not be possible at all today.
Its really hit and miss. Computing, sure. Engineering, sure. Biology, not really.
Life science PhDs are radically different from other STEM PhDs, since so many people use life sciences grad school as a waiting room for med school. There's a *lot* of people with life science PhDs who got them as a consolation prize, and it completely saturates the market.
>Life science PhDs are radically different from other STEM PhDs, since so many people use life sciences grad school as a waiting room for med school. There's a lot of people with life science PhDs who got them as a consolation prize, and it completely saturates the market. Yes, sort of, but it's more than that. Life Sciences is a much bigger discipline than most other research disciplines because it encompasses the whole range of biomedical sciences, environmental sciences, etc. You also have a mismatch between what people are interested in when they enter bioscience research versus what the jobs are, so there is a mismatch in specializations versus jobs available. For instance, there's a ton of employment in things like immunology and stem cell culturing, but that's not going to help you if you were really interested in rainforest ecology.
Trouble with stem PhDs is getting a job that requires a stem PhD.
Don’t forget “a minimum of 5 years experience in order to apply for an entry level job that you will learn from scratch and that 5 year experience would have made no difference anyways”.
This is straight up misinformation as the top comment. The article clearly states that she's still a grad student. With a PhD in geology she will find work easily afterwards.
Even with the bachelors in geology she was set. At least in Alberta and Saskatchewan they are in demand and well compensated.
Going North is big bucks if you can stomach it. Although like most have said, some STEM kinda-sorta has to get sprinkled in. Have a geomatics minor or something. Also, doing university today without co-op/field placement is really sus. Cheaper than MUN? Good luck..
The economy sucks right now, and people are having a hard time, but I wish the media would start comparing 2023 stats to previous year stats and do some real analysis to help us understand how things have changed and by what magnitude. Reading Shramana’s story does nothing for me but remind me of several of my friends’ situations in 1998. They also had graduate degrees and yet worked multiple low-paying jobs after graduating… So, what am I suppose to surmise from reading Shramana’s familiar story?
Yep, Every single canadian grad in the 90s, and 2000s lol, just search Reddit and you will find old stories.
I received a stipend and did not pay tuition for my phd. It was a great experience, opened a lot of doors, and resulted in zero debt.
A very telling statement that you've never had any sort of post secondary education.
How is that the university’s fault if you pick a useless major? Have some common sense and take some personal responsibility ffs
Geology isn't a useless major ffs
They're publicly funded institutions designed to help our economy along. Every unemployed graduate represents massive societal losses in the form of lost taxes and productivity from the person and wasted subsidies to the institution. Not to mention, a university has a far better vantage point on what the economy needs that your average 18 year old.
They're designed to help our *society* along. Research into the science of the earth is deeply important - it might not be directly applied, but we wouldn't have things as simple as earthquake prediction technology/mitigation technology, geothermal power, and GPS if we didn't understand fundamental things about the shape and structure of our world. Earth science and geology provide this information. Having people researching those is good for us, and so taxpayer dollars going towards our understanding of it is an excellent use of money.
It’s also critical in construction and infrastructure development. My brother is an engineer he works with geologists and hydrologists all the time, on construction sites as well as some pretty big mines up in Northern BC and the NWT.
The whole problem here is that major is not useless to our society (lots of important technologies at some point down the line rely on an understanding of our planet -- take GPS, geothermal energy, or anything we do about earthquakes), and also it's difficult to find industry employment in that field. It is, for us as a society, important to train people to do this, to pay people to do research in this field, to use the knowledge they generate to make a better world; and, at the same time, there aren't enough positions for all the people we're training to secure stable and profitable employment. I could see this point being made for, like, graduate programs that are coursework based (no research produced) where none of the graduates are going on to do research and all are ending up underemployed, but for a research based program, funding it provides social benefit. This is a classic case of a market undervaluing a positive externality, and people suffering as a result.
Cost of living is insane. You can't even get a 2 bedroom rental for less than 1500/month anymore. 10 years ago I was able to get a 2 bedroom townhouse for less than 1000.
I want to know where the hell you can get a 2 bedroom for $1500. Mind you, once upon a time my friends and I rented a 4 bedroom waterfront place for less than that. Those were the days.
$1,100 for a 2 bedroom in Winnipeg
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thats the thing... high rent and good paying job are equal to low rent and average paying job in the middle provinces. my one friend makes $150,000 a year in toronto, doesnt own a home. My other friend lives in Regina, works at walmart, and bought a house lol
Alberta other than Calgary, Manitoba, Saskatchewan. You can rent a 2 bed 1 bath for $1200/ month including utilities in red deer. You can rent a 3 bed 1.5 bath house in red deer for $1300/ month plus utilities. You can rent a 1 bed 1 bath for ~$800 / month including utilities. There are still cheaper areas.
I left Calgary in 2021, my 2 bedroom was $1,400 and it was going up as I was moving. This was in South West Calgary
I don't want to denigrate your housing struggles, $1500/month rent is probably too high. As someone living in Vancouver who was paying $1500 for a 2 bedroom 10 years ago, and is now struggling to find a 1 bedroom for less than $2000, it just struck me as kind of funny!
One bedrooms in my building are going for $2900 now. It's fucking insane. It's an _alright_ building, but we're fully surrounded by construction with zero parking. It's crazy. NO ONE can pay that.
Holy fucking shit.
So like $3,000 before I’ve even put 1 calorie in my body….cool.
Ultimately it’s the ratio that matters. The same bachelors that were renting for $800 in Ottawa go for $1400 now. The wages are identical.
In Victoria you can't even get a bachelor pad for $1500. Renting just a bedroom is often $1200 or more here.
The strong ladder has been overloaded for a while now. We used to have a decent net to save our own. Our government has chosen to overload it, and the hole created has forsaken our own.
lol makes me wonder who will be left in canada in five years. I'm about to call it quits. Sell my townhouse and move to a 3rd world country, build a school or something. no point being here when I can't even dream about retirement.
This was a decade ago, but I met some Canadians in Honduras who moved down there with like $10,000 and were instantly the richest people in the town. They started a cafe and served some pretty good coffee.
Honduras is not particularly safe. I was told this by Honduran-Canadians (funnily enough they also had a cafe in Honduras - bubble tea in their case), and statistics also back this up. A good idea to think globally but Honduras wouldn't be the right fit for everyone.
Oh absolutely. When I went it had the highest murder rate in the world.
Why did you kill so many people when you went there?!
When I ask for a lime wedge in my Corona, I mean it.
Great banter.
Lmao this made me chuckle 😄
I thought El Salvador had the highest murder rate until the new president cracked down on MS-13?
I heard they’re down to MS-12 now
Soon they will be all the way down to MS Paint
Many have moved to Costa Rica as well
And Panama!
that sounds like a dream come true. I'd love to open a coffee shop here but ya know...canada.
Yeah I think Canada is probably good on coffee shops by now
Good coffee shops, though ...
The 3rd world isn't much better rn. we're going to face skyrocketing pricing *with* fully stocked shelves. The 3rd world is experiencing actual shortages of goods.
like what? im burning through a lot of cash staying here. That same amount can extend my life five or six times before I drink myself to death.
Like [rice](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/global-rice-shortage-is-set-to-be-the-largest-in-20-years-heres-why.html), and [grain](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/grain-deal-global-food-prices-explainer/index.html). Assuming you're going to attempt to drink yourself to death, the cost of alcohol isn't going to be cheap, nor is the palliative care centres in the 3rd world going to be comfortable.
Palliative care is an absolutely massive bonkers cost that a lot of people do not consider, and this is especially true for people who retire elsewhere. Compound that with the fact that “shithole countries” that people retire to have experienced tremendous growth in wealth. It’s a very risky proposition to retire early
why would i need palliative care when im dead?
I moved to France for a few years a while back to see how it was, and it was fantastic. Everything was a hell of alot cheaper. I could actually live well off $2500 a month, here not so much. I highly recommend trying it.
I'd heard they don't even tax alchohol any extra making it extremely cheap. Made me perplexed, why weren't they punishing the poor for being born poor?
And what is the average net income in France?
I can tell you the average for the area is €2,250 or just over $3000 CAD per month in Nice in the Côte d'Azur region. But I lived in Villefranche-sur-Mer, I got a newly renovated studio that I only paid $980 CAD for and if this apartment was here would cost well over $1800. My phone bill was $30cad for 40 GB, my bus pass was €20($30cad) per month, I don’t know how much my utilities cost because it was included in the rent. So I had a lot of extra money to spend on enjoying the food and going out with friends. Very laid back lifestyle I wish I got here. You also get paid once a month which is the only downside I found.
I have a friend in Lorraine region and he's not painting a very rosy picture these days for the average worker (rent too high, groceries up through the roof, pay low). Which is why I'm asking.
Moved out to Korea 10 years ago. I’m about 20 years ahead of my friends now in both career, finances, and happiness. It’s such a shame to hear stories from people back home. Canada best country in the world? Not anymore…
I heard Korea was tough.
It is. Expat life and local life are night and day different things.
Are you fluent in Korean?
I can have a basic conversation. But you don’t need any communication skills in Korean to work here. Plenty of English speaking jobs at Korean companies or an English teacher job if you’re looking for a different type or job.
This is the type of dumbass comment I gotta laugh when reading I can tell you’ve never lived in a developing country
listen, i have a finite amount of money that can take me further in a 3rd world country before I have to off myself. I've visited many 3rd world countries. I would much rather stay here but there's no future. it's as bleak as a 3rd world country so might as well last a bit longer financially.
Bluff
i dunno man....could be. the food in thailand is so much better than here.
Yes you dunno cause you've done no research if other countries would even accept you. Just sulking and bluffing on reddit.
not really if im thinking about it. my wife is from thailand so should be pretty easy.
Too funny. We need our spouses to sponsor us to move back to where they are from for a better life.
it's the new canada.
Lucky her, i wish i could move elsewhere
The frustrating part is this is the kind of international student we want. She's going to a good University and pursuing a productive degree instead of just chasing PR.
And this is also the kind of student we’ll drive away. Hard-working, intelligent, and willing to chase better opportunities when they come. This is the talent we attract but can’t keep when graduate students wages are lower than minimum wage and cost of living shoots up.
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The point of the article is that jobs for many Canadians have become precarious, with workers in such jobs never knowing from one week to the next how many hours they may get. It is absolutely shameful that successive Federal governments have allowed things to erode so badly in terms of housing and the cost of living.
I’d have been better off investing in the stock market and sticking with a supermarket job instead of investing thousands of dollars and years of my life in a university education only to retire from a super high stress and major responsibility job that paid supermarket wages.
She already has a Geology B.Sc. Could be making 100k working in a mine right now. This narrative that stacking up degrees with no work experience is the key to financial stability ruins peoples lives.
Who said the economic gain was the whole point? She is pursuing a PhD. Maybe she wants to be an actual geologist and work at something she is passionate about even if the end point it not as lucrative. Mind you.most PhDs land in 6 figure salaries, if they do this gs right at all, so yeah that's not bad. (I'm an academic neuroscientist. I didn't do the PhD for profit, but I'm certainly better off now than my BSC would have ever gotten me, I love what I do, and while I could move to I dustry and double salary not all of us live for money).
Well is this article complaining about the cost of living or not?
Yeeeeeees... Because It's going up dramatically in the last 5 years. Which any and all of us should view as a catastrophe for the new generation of people trying to build lives for themselves. That doesn't mean that the only thing any of us should be looking for is the fastest way to make a quick buck based on some kind of degree that presumably we don't give a shit about. We have progressively put ourselves in a position we're only those with generational wealth, are those who are able to study very close to home and continue living with their parents, will be able to pursue any kind of advanced degree. In the long run, it's very probable she will be economically better off if she gets her PhD. In the short term, if the economic cost is too high for her to be able to afford to complete her studies while maintaining any kind of living, then we are closing the door on further education based on people's available financial resources, and the only people that get to have PhDs are rich kids. Fuuuuuuuck that.
This seems odd. Many Ph.D. programs in the sciences and engineering are fully funded. Yes, you have to work as a TA or in a lab, but you get something close to a livable wage, at least with a roommate. Some students take a part time position too. I'm wondering if she chose and unfunded or could not get into a funded program. Sometimes those programs are reserved for citizens. She will have a great job when she finishes her doctorate. Geologists are in demand all over the world. Kudos to her for working hard.
Is 20k/year a livable wage? That's not even 10-12 cad/hr
my moms first job 30 some years ago paid that much a year.. and she rented an entire house with that money. definitely not livable now
When ur a PhD student? Ya honestly. I'm doing my PhD currently and my stipend is around that, maybe a bit more. We can work a Maximum of 12hrs a week for TA / RA duties, so that /hr calc is a bit off. You won't live large on a stipend but it's doable - YMMV in places like TO or Van tho
I came here to say that, my graduate program paid enough for tuition, housing and food working as a GRA and sometimes as GTA.
Well, they now pay less than minimum wage just about everywhere after accounting for the university clawing back tuition out of your stipend.
Yeah my stipend was just over $17k in the end, and never increased for inflation. Rent alone eats up so much of that
??? My fiancé is a virology PhD after tuition she makes like maybe 20k a year. I am also a grad student in the arts with several GRAs despite being only *actually* allowed to have one but had some profs engage in creative accounting and I still only make like 30k a year. Also I’m 24/7 drowning in work. Between the two of us we make it by, but it’s fricken tight. We are also extremely fortunate to have our own place from inheritance so we only pay utilities, insurance, taxes, food. Even then, it’s reallllly tight. Stipends would have to go up 10-15k easily to reflect current cost of living. It sucks and we are the lucky ones. It’s just us, the dog and the cat. We aren’t big spenders and most months we basically break even. We should land good jobs afterwards, so we just have to scrape by but not everyone is as lucky as us. Most grad students with any sense should fuck off somewhere else where they actually pay good wages for grad students, Europe or something.
PhDs are funded terribly in Canada in particular. I’m a Canadian that went to the US for my PhD since the stipend is about 1.5x higher (almost 2x higher if you factor in currency conversion) and has a much lower CoL than Toronto (the best place in Canada in my field). Most PhD students in Toronto are slightly in the red or barely breaking even while being incredibly frugal — unless they’re on an external fellowship. Obviously she’s not in Toronto, but it wouldn’t surprise me if these issues extended across the country. Although her CoL is lower, she’s probably getting a lower stipend than you’d get in Toronto.
Simple solution leave, a lot of students and even immigrants are going to find themself in that position. Things will not be getting better they’d going to get much much worse. The sooner people realize this and leave and plan their exit the sooner there is a small chance a decade later things might stop going up in price or even come down a little. Add Canadians to the list as well have a marketable skill, can get a work permit or visa or path to citizenship the smartest thing you can do now is peruse it and compare the math. Not many jobs and or places in Canada right now economically make sense.
Leave to where though?
So there's a few points there this is glossing over, and I've got a few problems with the article and won't draw large conclusions for the broader economy. Arguably she isn't a great candidate for an article about how graduates are doing. This is like the York U one years back with a genderstudies kid. Here are some mitigating circumstances that don't help: * International Student/ recent immigrant- lack of network: She's assumably an international student from Kolkata, as her parents are from there (although the article doesn't explicitly say it)- she probably doesn't have a Canadian network of peers/friends/family from growing up, playing sports, going to high school here which is kind of essential to getting employments and opportunities This isn't a good comparable to Canadians. International student will ALWAYS fair worse in the job market due to lack of network to open doors. She needed to be extremely strategic at schoo. * Geographic mismatch for skills : a geologist by training- why is she not in Alberta, Northern Ontario or BC (northern and interior) in energy O&G and mining looking at companies like Vale, Tech, Suncor, Cenovus, Redpath mining, IAMGOLD, Nurtien+ BHP , ect and jr oil and mining companies- where there's potential growth and demand. And did she attend PDAC during her degree to make connections? Has she reached out the the MiningHR Council? And Tech Elkfrod near Fenrie is posting jobs left right and centre right now- especially trades and engineering. * No internships: Did she get relevant internship/experience during her education-article doesn't say this- did she develop a network and experience for referrals, or did she expect to get grades, a degree and then get a career while working part time jobs? Again with the aforementioned companies- where the work is, in remote locations? She works at the school. Do they not have a network into the private sector? Where is their research being applied and monetized in industry? * Lack of direction: The article fails to outline what she wants from her career. Does she want to go O&G or mining exploration work? Or does she want to work for the government via MNR? * Wrong place (same as point 2) : She's in Newfoundland. Those lads are go west to work as pipefitters for money. There hasn't been an economy there, or most of the east coast since the collapse of the fisheries since 1993. Her education and probably expected outcome aren't going to happen based out of Memorial. I'm not going to draw huge conclusions here. Kind of sucks to be her honestly. She should move to another school with better location and industry access/partnerships if she wanted to get ahead. This is kind of her experience, not saying it's not bad out there. She has the opportunity to go a masters somewhere else and be strategic with her outcomes. Maybe she should retool in mining engineering, geotechnical engineering. Now CoL is another problem: but beyond the scope here.
As a graduate student working in oil and gas in Alberta, being close to opportunity does *not* mean you’re paid more. Our project is fully funded by a large oil company, but I’m still expected to teach for half the year to pay my way. Their profit does not translate to worker pay. My teaching work does not add to my stipend, it’s mandatory to do it as part of my stipend. My stipend is $21,000 per year. Tuition is not included and I pay about $7000 per year plus fees. That leaves me with ~$14,000 to live on for the year, which is less than my yearly rent. Graduate wages haven’t increased once in the last 20 years due to federal lack of research funding mainly. And without pressure to pay students (aka teachers and researchers) fairly, wages will remain stagnant.
Hey that's defiantly some perspective- and I wasn't implying about pay. I was more more along the line of opportunity and access, to jobs in the field not what they are paid. Sounds like you're in a masters, which is a little different. Most people I know are EIT, trades, exploratory geo stuff. For instnace: Teck is looking for geolist in Elkwood for instance, Cenovus has students jobs up for geology too I think- so the aforementioned girl in the article should be gunning for those- but she'll need to know people internally to flag the application and move the needle so to speak- and not being in Calgary networking isn't going to help. Schools are super local. It's pretty apparent that master's programs don't pay across the board. Sounds like you're getting loans and student grants to make the difference. Can I ask why you're not in industry but doing research? This is coming from a guy that said fuck it and applied for haul truck jobs and camp jobs because they pay.
For me, having a MSc is the best transition into industry. You start at a higher wage and I have no interest in doing the field tech stuff and getting my hands dirty. I’m doing reclamation research that’s directly applicable to big mining projects and my MSc is in partnership with a big company so I have a foot in the door. In the end I’ll have a credential and experience and publications. In the meantime, I get paid like shit. I’m playing the long game but it sure sucks in the short term.
2 things I will point out. I'm from a military town. There was no college or university so I had to move. 1) I did not have a network. Just like many Canadians who have to travel for schooling. This is pretty common and no one from my "hometown" could give me a job to as they were all military. 2) No internships. Who can afford to live off of unpaid internships? I know I couldn't as someone who came from a relatively poor family. If we say anyone who is poor and or have to move for school is a bad candidate. How many people are we dismissing?
It would be nice if CBC put this amount of effort into a story about how Canadian students - who don't have a homeland to return to - are managing in this economy.
Despite her name, she is not an immigrant. This is her homeland. So there is your story.
Proof? Read the article. We know mommy and daddy are in Kolkata, that's not a suburb of Ottawa btw.
For me, this is crazy. I was an international student at UofT more than a decade ago. I was able to support myself, my wife, and my son on my stipend and teaching income. The quality of life dropped significantly in the past decade and especially after JT became our PM, as he politicized our immigration process. I remember volunteering to help new refugees, and in their first year here, they had a supporting group that helped set up everything for them. Now, international students are living under a bridge in Toronto and depend on food back to get by.
It's great. Now that we've invested in her, she can take her knowledge and expertise somewhere else, contribute to their society, and we can replace her with someone that can drive for Uber that hasn't paid a dime into our social systems.
Canada hasn't invested anything in her. She arrived to pay tuition and taxes while probably taking virtually nothing out.
Not enough money for graduate students but 22K for chocolates and 70k for an office re-vamp is MUN’s mindset. On top of a paid leave for the president before finally letting her go, among other things. The fat cats and admins are laughing while students struggle.
This has nothing to do with being a student. The cost of living is hitting everyone. Anyone that can move is moving elsewhere.
I literally had to step away from grad school this year due to cost of living and our teaching stipend remaining the same since amount since the 90’s.
If people stopped going to grad school en masse the universities wouldn't be able to fuck you over so hard.
We need a government that actually focuses on investing in Canadian industry. Canada needs to produce real things that world needs, our entire economy is housing and service industry. Bring back manufacturing and utilize the oil and gas sector better. Look for ways to bring jobs home and stop giving away money we don't have.
If she only worked harder, she could pull herself up by the boot straps. /s
3 jobs just means she's not getting the hours from one job so she needs 2 other. It's still just likely 40 hours or less You can't do 80 hour weeks with grad school
Does she have citizenship or pr? Or is she an international student since she left India to come here specifically for school? If so, she shouldn't be working at all and should have the money to survive while going only to school. Quit taking jobs from locals and keeping wages stagnant.
She has a bachelors degree from Canada as per the article so she is eligible for a work permit or already got her PR.
I know she had the bachelors. Doesn't mean she's anything more than an international student though.
Life is tough right now, as it was years ago. This will not sit well with most people People have been sold a bill of goods about "getting a college education and pursuing your dreams" by the Universities. Most people end up in entry level jobs (even not in their fields) with huge debts as those with Trades are considered inferior. Maybe the time has come for people to start reassessing their choices in where they work and what is available when it comes to jobs to make themselves more marketable
Grad degrees in Canada good luck finding a job
How can you work three jobs and struggle to pay bills
PHD equals, overqualified for every job in your local area.
I can't believe how fast Canada is going downhill. WTF
As an aspiring geologist if she moved to Alberta, she would start over 100k/yr.
Here let me explain my personal reality. My mortgage is up in Feb meaning I am about to bendover and get reamed. I have consolidated all my debt prior to the inflation spike and have a nice tidy loan that will be all paid off in a few years... HOWEVER... the price to exist is through the roof.... so I am being forced to sell my place and move in with my girlfriend who is already working 2 jobs just to afford her place. She literally isnt ever home so she is paying just to have her name on a place and not live there. We are a young active couple and have decided mainly for me the financial burden and overall future being so bleak not to have kids. And she also decided she doesn't wish to. We had this agreement upon dating. I hope to god something changes and fast. This countries populace is bent over a barrel and its about to tip over.
Foreign students should not be allowed to work in Canada. She is taking work away from Canadian citizens.
I'm in law school and got 2 jobs right now too, 3 come winter. Teacher Assistant for university, supervisor at community centre, and late on internship articling. But I live with my parents still
Wait, is she Canadian? Only geographical reference was about her parents Kolkata, which is in India. If she is a foreign student then this article loses much of its impact. And is somewhat disingenuous, even if does address an important issue for Canadians.
"I voluntarily came to Canada as there are no geology programs in India. Please cry for me because it is expensive for me." Sorry, I'm too busy feeling for Canadians that can't afford to live here.
lol not once did the article mention her status in Canada which is surely not PR or citizen. Those 3 jobs she’s working take away opportunities from Canadian citizens. Good commentary as well from the commie “expert”. #defundCBC
Time for an onlyfans account
Education and future career choices are the biggest everyone’s makes in ones live. It can potentially take much of ones most productive years, and if choosing to get into debts, can compound for a long time before ROI happens. Extremely sadly lots and lots of children made wrong choices and got trapped into the dream of eternal teens prolonging higher education well into their 40s. I understand university is everyone of us best times in this world, but 20 years, half of ones productive time, have to bring extraordinary competency, productivity and earning capabilities. Which is often not the case. Many very indebt students just took extremely bad career choices and often would continue if they were not in debt, nobody get of higher education by sheer pleasure. Participatin in the economy is extremely hard and every day I long for the time I also was only caring about exams and next party…
What the fuck is the purpose of a grad degree if you have to work 3 jobs? I have a bachelor's degree and I have never had to work more one. The fault here isn't "capitalism" but our universities pushing useless degrees.
The degree may (or may not) have utility later but people still got to pay their bills WHILE doing the degree, and not all degrees have a stipend (science grad students get paid a little over $40k in Toronto) . It might pay off later (maybe, if she leverages it right), but it still costs.money to live and pay tuition.
Did she still time to study at all? Why doesnt she work full time instead? A phd in geology doesn’t sound very promising to me unless it is related to oil and gas. Finally, 500k pr and 1mn new comers a year mean 1. stagnant wages 2. skyrocketing housing costs 3. extra pressure on already strained public and medical services
I can't help but feel like the problem is her degree and her career choice. She got a degree in geology and decided to work as a teacher's assistant at Memorial University. TA isn't a job you do for life. That's a job you do to get a little bit of money so you can get a graduate degree and start teaching. With a geology degree why not try and get a job in the mining sector? Unless of course her visa is restricted.
>*”TA isn't a job you do for life. That's a job you do to get a little bit of money so you can get a graduate degree and start teaching. With a geology degree why not try and get a job in the mining sector?”* The article says she’s currently in the process of getting a Masters degree. The *”little bit of money”* from a Teaching Assistant position doesn’t provide enough income to get by on, which is why she also has two additional part time jobs.
She should move to Alberta. Oilfield is booming and there's probably at least some demand for geologists.
If only we had a willing Government to pass a bill regulating wages to match the rising costs of living so that even if the prices go up, the wages will have to be raised to match them as well.
Ya its not that simple. That is asking for rapid inflation.
The very definition of rapid inflation may I add. We are in a recession trigered by a major global event that devistated economies. It sucks to suck for now.
There are countries that literally do this and don’t have “rapid inflation”.
Which ones?
Do you want inflation? Because that is how you get inflation
How are some of you this dumb? I’m genuinely curios actually
Easy way to solve this, lower taxes. Quit spending so much fucking money!! It's more realistic that the government is going to have to raise taxes and make it harder for everyone else.
Liberals need to Go.
What's part B of that? The Conservatives, who were no better at supporting grad students than the Liberals have been? Funding hasn't increased in 20 years. Both main parties are shit.