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A little off topic, but I am amazed that some US and Canadian residents have never visited the US or Canda while living just across the border. Some of my Asian students are surprised that I have never visited Western Canada, only having gone as far as Toronto. But then I point out that I grew up on the US Eastern seaboard, so going to the west coast wasn't that common (besides airports, only 1 trip after leaving the west coast in my childhood). I guess the world is not that small after all.
Peter, I am surprised to hear your opinions about immigrants arrving in Canada. I guess my students who successfully emmigrated to Canada didn't know the 'right' people, as they had to do it the hard way. From the information I had, immigrants were rated on employability factors as well as age, and how well they did in their English language interview. I'll let you guess what occupation had/has the highest number of points (actually the same one for the Australian rating system).
One more thing, after rereading the first page in this thread, is job security really that bad now in the US and Canada? My problem in Japan is getting permanent full time employment. There is plenty of university work here, (I would bet Linda and Peter could clean up here, webpage making classes in English) but (and it's a big BUT), for a foreigner to get a full time tenured job that is well paid, that has gotten almost impossible.
So many of the foreign lecturers I know or are familiar with are part-timers or limited contract full timers who are often looking for new work either every 3-5 years (limited contract people) or even yearly (part-timers, who work at up to 6 universities in a week, I will be doing 4 this next academic year) depending on the whim of the Japanese staff who control hiring and the dissemination of classes.
Anyway, sorry, getting a bit long winded here, my point is you can make money, pretty good money if you stick it out as these uni posts pay for vacation breaks (about 16-20 plus weeks a year if you are a part-timer), as well as allowing you to do other work during the breaks (some of the lecturers who are high on the pay scale with a daunting 24 classes a week don't work during the vacations), but it is in a sense insecure.
What I am not sure about is,is running your own business necessarily more secure than that? Or is it perhaps better to run a few businesses (spreading your risk, like working at several places at once), some of which might be part-time or seasonal, to allow for fluctuations in different markets?
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