Australia is quite different from the above in the sense that from what I’ve experienced, the labour market tends to be farily favourable to migrants. Infact, immigration via the Skilled Migration program tends to place people in an industry before they arrive, providing them with the contacts and know-how to find employment in their relevant industries. Ironically, in Australia, insititutions and departments tend to be very open to employees of all races, even in managerial positions. The Australian public at large however, have the notion that migrants are taking what should be “Aussie jobs”. However, the Australian labour market is a meritocracy at the worst of times because as an up and coming economy, it can’t afford a skilled labour shortage and without migrants, the economy would struggle to survive. In Australia these days, there is a catch-22 situation whereby many are opposed to immigration as they carry an outright dislike of migrants but are heavily dependent upon the migrant workforce whether it be in blue-collar factory/manufacturing industries or white-collar technical/professional industries. With a majority of second-generation Indians just entering the labour force now, it will be interesting to see what the actual figures are in ten years time.

This just in from Canada: The Canadian dream apparently means offering your future CANADIAN-BORN children as a readily-identifiable cheap labor pool (see article posted below).

Do you think it’s any different in the US or Australia?
Actually, I know, the U.S. is the same. England is likely worse.
I don’t have the Aussie data yet, do you?

At least the Canadians admit what they are. Canadian Moulson must be a bit weaker brew than Foster’s (Australian for beer).

“Cheers curry mates! You’re more educated, and more productive, but make only 2/3rds of my salary. Because of you the economy is constantly fed a healthy diet of Asian/African food. On second thought, we’re glad you came.”

Job market unkind to Canada-born minorities: study Wed Feb 22, 7:06 PM ET TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian-born visible minorities face more hurdles than any other groups when trying to get well-paid jobs, according to a study published on Wednesday.

The gap is not due to differences in skills and education, but to racial discrimination, said the study published by the Canadian Labour Congress.

Lower incomes, higher unemployment and precarious work status are prevalent among workers from visible minorities, and particularly for the second-generation of immigrants born in Canada.

Although they are more highly educated than average, this second generation has the most difficulty finding steady employment at decent wages, said Leslie Cheung, a graduate student in public policy at Simon Fraser University and author of the study.

Canadian-born workers from visible minorities are younger then the average worker, explaining part of the gap.

But they still lag behind when compared to white workers in the same age group, according to the study, which compared unemployment rates, income and representation in lower and higher skilled occupations.

Among other things, the study found Canadian-born visible minorities were over-represented in part-time and temporary jobs.

Visible minorities, who make up about 13 percent of the workforce, are concentrated in low level sales and clerical jobs, working under a glass ceiling that prevents them from climbing to more senior positions, the study found.

“Given that this group was born and educated in Canada, this gap is likely to reflect racial status to a greater degree than language abilities,” Cheung wrote in the study. “Foreign credentials, a barrier for many immigrant workers of color, are clearly not a factor.”

Annual earnings of Canadian-born visible minorities averaged C$21,983 in 2000, while immigrant workers earned C$25,205 and white Canadians earned C$30,141.

The unemployment rates for the same year for people aged 15 to 24 show comparable gaps — 15.5 percent for Canadian-born visible minorities and 13.3 per cent for Canadian-born whites.

The federal government has projected that by 2017 about 20 percent of Canadians will be members of a visible minority group, defined as non-white and non-aboriginal, with higher rates in large cities such as Toronto and Vancouver.

“With the young Canadian-born worker of color population now entering the work force in large numbers, and the ever increasing migration of people of color to Canada, the reality of racism must be confronted from all sectors of society, rather than denied,” according to the study, which was based on data from Statistics Canada’s 2001 census.

Some real anti-racist leadership would be preferable to soft multiculturalism, in my view.

But can you be an anti-racist leader without touting the benefits of multiculturalism?

I think the “let’s-all-love-each-other multiculturalism” is a good way to keep the middle class from being fearful of ‘different’ people. The pinkos will always be pinkos and the skinheads will always be skinheads, but espousing the virtues of multiculturalism is perhaps the best way to create harmony in the swinging middle class for both immigrants and ‘natives’ (to use the term loosely).

Having said that, things probably would have been rather different hadn’t 9/11 happened.

The objections to Keating’s economic management are also problematic, I think. It’s really quite mistaken to believe that Howard and Costello have personally delivered low interest rates, for example, when there have been more fundamental, structural reasons for recent economic conditions (which, again, began under Labor).

And I think we can blame the government for quite a lot, actually. They have set a tone throughout their term which has absolutely condoned racism, and just recently MP after MP has been putting his/her head up to tell migrants who don’t hold “Aussie values” to “go home”. Dana Vale was just scandalous in saying that abortion must be opposed because otherwise Muslims will outbreed “Australians”, for example. She really deserved to have her head (figuratively) kicked for that one, but no-one even raised an eyebrow. And the rest of us have just to go around listening to people telling us not to mind.

But yes, flygirl, the Canberra Multicultural Festival is really spectacular.

‘Honest’? Oh dear. That’s probably the last word in the dictionary I would use to describe Mr Howard.

bengali>Well, we just had a two week multicultural festival here in Canberra It feels as if the outward celebration of multiculti has almost disappeared. Or perhaps not as publicised as they used to be – a case of it all being a bit old hat or another symptom.

…apologies to the Mutiny

note: I don’t think we can entirely blame governments for school-kids calling eachother ‘curry’ and ‘wog’ etc We came to same conclusions as you did when commenting on the Rage Down Under post on SM after the cronulla riots. Totally agree with you on all accounts:)

Sorry to go off topic but:

I don’t think we can entirely blame governments for school-kids calling eachother ‘curry’ and ‘wog’ etc.

I think we can. Nowadays there are hardly any festivals, activities, programmes or marketing for multiculturalism (largely due to the government funding cuts for such programmes). In the 80s the word ‘multiculturism’ was the cool and ‘in’ word and virtually every month there’d be something multicultural happening, but nowadays it’s a horrid word to describe a horrid ideology. This is further perpetuated by Government official’s statements which thinly veil their “either become totally Australian or get the f*** outta here” stance.

Why oh why can’t there be a Paul Keating (social) and Peter Costello (economic) love child to run Australia?