RW And Job Prospects in USA

[FredC]

I just wanted to add this, it would also seem that once English is learned, some jobs are universal. I would guess that say a hairdresser could easily find employment and once she built a clientele easily make a very good living.

[ambach123]

Thanks for a very thoughtful post Jet.

As Ken C stated Lena started with retail and that is what she still does. For most RW that would be it.

For those who are willing to put in the time and efforts, they would eventually get out of minimum wage jobs. How many RW are willing to put in that amount of effort?

My problem is that the RW I am communicating with are almost oblivious to the realities of life in USA; they seem to believe USA is just easy street.

I want to make sure they understand the realities before they come here.

To illustrate why wages are important, where I live, in Boston, a shoe box of a condo costs a million bucks. You can imagine what life would be with a minimum wage job.

[KenC]

Thanks for a very thoughtful post Jet.

As Ken C stated Lena started with retail and that is what she still does. For most RW that would be it.

For those who are willing to put in the time and efforts, they would eventually get out of minimum wage jobs. How many RW are willing to put in that amount of effort?

My problem is that the RW I am communicating with are almost oblivious to the realities of life in USA; they seem to believe USA is just easy street.

I want to make sure they understand the realities before they come here.

To illustrate why wages are important, where I live, in Boston, a shoe box of a condo costs a million bucks. You can imagine what life would be with a minimum wage job.

ambach,
Just a minor correction here.  The jobs sighted here were all part time employment while Lena completes her degree for her "real field."  I will say that Jet's, jb's and groov's wives are the exceptions to the rule though.  Many RW are stuck in low paying entry level positions in the beginning.  Some well beyond just the beginning too.  These women have a very rough row to hoe here.  They start over in a new culture, new language and new society.  That new start is usually not at the top, or even the middle in most cases.  You would be safe to assume that it will be years before your future Russian bride will have a significant income.
KenC

[Serebro]

I have a lot of friends 20-30 yo who live in the USA.
most of them have good English so they are either students or have "middle-class" job, like one of them, the girl who is a good friend of mine works as a manager in a travel agency, the "best"example I personally know of about  is the girl from my first secondary school, Elena Ollick, is the owner of a mortgage company FaithHomeLoans


http://faithhomeloans.com/quote/contact.htm

http://www.ollickfamily.com/photos.html

but her husband is a well-off man.


PS:I remembered another lady I know, her cousin married a man from England, (it was her 5-th marriage, btw ), that woman is an artist and her English is  poor, so she works at home and her husband says that after she has more paintings he will help her with an exhibition.

It's interesting to mention their correspondence. The woman is in her 40-ies and has a 14 yo son, she is a quite  ordinary looking woman so when she started writing to men(she used an online translator)she didn't hope she would find a decent man and she only hoped that she would be able to give education and a good start to her son.

So she started writing to an Englishman who had migrated to England from Iran many years ago and according to his profile he was a school teacher.

When she came to him it turned out that he was a medical doctor and he also taught at university(he hadn't told her about that),  now they are happily married, she says that she has never dreamed of a man like him as he is very patient and calm and loves her, her son goes to a good private school for foreigners, and as for her she will have her first exhibition in June.

minuses: -she stays at home all the time and she says she is bored and she is quite a sociable person, as a result she doesn't speak good English.

-they got married in Russia and they had big problems because of his nationality, so now he doesn't like Russia at all, she can visit her Russian family when she wants but he doesn't want to go to Russia with her again.

[Bruce]

Jet's wife did fabulously, as did JB's.   Groov's wife seems fine to me as well, but her job is very dependent on the housing market - which in Manhattan, NY only seems to go up, so it probably will be a really good long term job.  Always best to do what you previously did whenever possible.

I also believe in USA credentials, which is why my wife is now in nursing school.  She just did not want to be a teacher here.  She was a linguist / teacher in Russia but did not want to teach in and around NYC.  So, she took the science courses at the local community college and applied to nursing school - a job in high demand both now and from all the forecasts I read in the future.  I asked her to pick something she feels she would like and go for it.  She will soon start the fifteen month BSN (RN program).  Job prospects for her will be really good for the rest of her life and nobody will ever question her credentials.

[Catman]

My friend married a girl from Ukraine who is an engineer but she couldn't find work in her field. Now she has a part time job as a bank teller.
The following is from the local Immigration committee newsletter. Maybe a little off topic as it is geared towards families who immigrate here but interesting all the same.

An excerpt from an article appearing in Statistics Canada "The Daily", January 25, 2008

Immigrants living in small urban centres and in rural areas tend to achieve economic integration much faster than immigrants living in large urban areas, according to a new study.

The study, published today in Perspectives on Labour and Income, shows that the income gap between immigrants and Canadians living in similar areas closed faster over time in smaller centres and rural areas than in large cities.

In very large urban areas, the initial income gap was 37%; after four years, the gap was 22%. In the 12th year, it fell below 10%.

In contrast, in small urban areas the initial gap was only 14%, and in the fourth year, immigrants were earning 2% more than Canadians. This relative advantage increased over time, reaching a peak of 18% during the 11th year.

 The income advantage of immigrants was even more pronounced in small towns and rural areas, where the average income of immigrants was 4% higher than that of Canadians after only one year of permanent residence.

Immigrants remained less likely to settle in small urban centres, with 75% of immigrants choosing to live in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (compared with 34% of the general population) and less than 3% settling in a small town or rural area (compared with 22% of the general population).

The income gap was widest upon an immigrants arrival. It declined over time as individuals overcame such hurdles as lack of ability in official languages, unrecognized foreign qualifications, and the lack of information on labour markets requirements and employment opportunities. On average, however, immigrants living in large urban centres experienced a slow decline in this income gap.

[Gator]

Catman,

Very interesting.  Did the study explain why it is this way?

My guess is that smaller areas, unlike large urban areas, do not have established communities of immigrants from the same country.  In a smaller city, to socialize immigrants must immerse themselves with local people.  While in the larger cities, immigrants can socialize with people from their original country, speak the same native language, etc., and thus delay complete immersion necessary to integrate. 

[Misha]

Also, smaller cities are less likely to have the upper level CEO's. They do not constitute a large proportion of the population, but they do skew the averages. It would be hard for a recent immigrant to break into the highest ranks of corporations.

[GalinaF]

I wonder guys, why do you speak of retail?

Retail and hospitality are jobs that require high level of communication. She would have to greet people, to understand what they want or perhaps anticipate their wishes, to make sure the communication is allright if needed.

For people who cannot good English, IMHO, the jobs that can be done with mouth shot come to my mind. Like cleaning, driving, caregiving, babysitting.

Lily, there are many jobs in retail that don’t require good English. When my daughter just came over, she worked at our local Old Navy for three months. It was “shipping and receiving” – they had to unload big trucks full of boxes. A person doesn’t need to speak while moving stuff, stacking shelves, cutting boxes, etc.

Restaurants is a completely different case… Again, my daughter worked in a few restaurants in our very rural area, and her accent was a huge drawback here. When an irritated customer comes, and a hostess or a waitress with an accent greets him, she becomes an easy target for him to start complaining straight away. Then, when my daughter moved to NYC and worked in a diner there, all of a sudden, her accent became completely understandable and never caused her a problem…

[GalinaF]

For those who are willing to put in the time and efforts, they would eventually get out of minimum wage jobs. How many RW are willing to put in that amount of efforts?

I think that it was a rhetorical question. Just adding my 2 cents… It depends not only on a woman’s drive, but on the family situation in general: whether the woman has to work and earn money from day one, whether she can choose what she really wants to do or she has to stick to the jobs that give her and her family important benefits, whether her husband is willing to help with cooking, shopping, looking after the kids, etc. while she is studying at night, whether the woman can apply for a loan to go to school, etc., etc., etc.   There are so many “ifs”…

[Jet]

One of the really big things YOU can do ahead of time is to research the requirements of whichever particular field she thinks she wants to enter, and present them to her as understandably as possible. Liliya knew she wanted to continue her teaching career and I spent quite a lot of time learning and then explaining the various requirements involved; everything from credential evaluation choices to where we could obtain study resources for the various parts of the Professional Educators examinations, and how long she could teach on a temporary certificate. Again, this is something you can do well in advance of her arrival, provided she has some idea of which direction she'd like to move in.

[DKMM]

I was surprised that the OP said that the RW he talked to thought USA was easy street.  The RW I talked to all heard that getting a decent job here is almost impossible.  My ex used to talk with a lot of them on some forum for ladies that moved here.  They all lamented how their skills were worthless here and they had to start over.  She was convinced she would need to be scrubbing floors or babysitting even though I already had several leads for her in her field and I'm well connected enough to get her going even though it would mean starting at a lower position (but much better pay).

That perception is probably different with girls that don't live in Moscow though.

[Caperone]

I was surprised that the OP said that the RW he talked to thought USA was easy street.  The RW I talked to all heard that getting a decent job here is almost impossible.  My ex used to talk with a lot of them on some forum for ladies that moved here.  They all lamented how their skills were worthless here and they had to start over.  She was convinced she would need to be scrubbing floors or babysitting even though I already had several leads for her in her field and I'm well connected enough to get her going even though it would mean starting at a lower position (but much better pay).

That perception is probably different with girls that don't live in Moscow though.

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Canada, it can be really bad with the professions with a professionnal association. (i.e. engineers or doctor-nurse whatever). These "professional assocation" often think that you're worthless if you didn't study here AND didn't get your experience here.

[Misha]

To play the Devil's Advocate, I would argue that it is perhaps a good thing that not all foreign professionals are automatically given accreditation in their field.

I have a friend from Russia who studied in the top school of dentistry in Moscow. She had to study two years in a special program to finally be recognized as a dentist in Canada. She notes however, that there are certain things that she did not do and did not learn in Russia. According to her, Russian dentists don't deal with cavities between teeth. She found her training in Canada to be very beneficial.

So there is the question of training: is the training received in another country adequate?

Then, there is the problem of corruption. Is the degree real? Was the degree earned? Was the diploma "bought"?

The danger is that it would only take a few cases of lousy professionals to discredit all the rest. Let's say one doctor from country X makes a mistake, it is discovered that this doctor's training is fraudulent and then all other doctor's from that country are discredited as patients avoid doctor's from country X for fear that they were not properly trained.

Yes, it is hard for foreign professionals to be accredited, but once they are accredited their skills and knowledge are considered to be equal to those of a professional trained in the country.

[2tallbill]

Living in the SF bay area, I have encountered a zillion accents.
I am in sales so it's important that I can understand what they
want, what are their needs, and what they are trying to accomplish.

There are many multimillionaires living here that had a good idea
and became very, very rich as a result. I know a Russian husband and wife who I sold $45K of windows for their pool house. In the 10,000 square foot house that they built the window costs were more than the purchase price of many homes. He had a creative idea about applying statistics in a software package and guess what it, he was right!

In the computer, engineering, genetics, chemistry, scientific, and even business fields you will find every kind of accent that you can imagine. Very few of my customers (all of them very very successful) will have the last name of Jones or Smith.

In my area it's almost unusual to find a company where everyone speaks accent perfect English.

While I agree that knowing English is a requirement but having a flawless accent in my area is not at considered a requirement at all.

We all know that if a man can throw a baseball 98 mph, or if he
can slide a hockey puck past most defenders that he will have a very high paying job. Business has slowly followed the same plan since it make sense to hire the best. 

Some areas of the country this will be slower and more difficult, in others it will be easier. We are (in the US) a nation of immigrants.

Just my two kopecks.

Bill