Germans on demand : the migration of highly-skilled German workers to the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, under the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program, 2000 to 2015

Temporary foreign workers, in particular Mexicans and Jamaicans, have been coming to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada, since the 1970s, often sojourning for consecutive years. Since 2000 male German skilled workers have also come to the region as temporary foreign workers. Contrary to Mexicans and Jamaicans, German skilled workers have been invited into the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BCPNP), allowing select skilled workers to transition from temporary to permanent residency. This research examines the BCPNP in its Okanagan context and investigates the circumstances of the German skilled labour recruited into this program. Using German male skilled workers as a case study, the study investigates the “German advantage” of these skilled workers as ideal participants in the BCPNP. The research also investigates the intermediaries of this migration phenomenon and documents the characteristics of this recruitment. Finally, the research examines the settlement and integration experiences of skilled workers and their wives in the Valley. This research is a bi-local empirical study, conducted in the countries of Germany and Canada. The study’s qualitative research methods of inquiry include 40 interviews with government officials, migration intermediaries, and skilled workers and their wives; field trips in the Okanagan Valley and in Berlin, Hamburg and Bonn in Germany; research of a variety of media sources, government reports and government statistical data; and a skilled worker questionnaire. The research demonstrates that Germans are conceptualized as ideal for the BCPNP due to their fascination with and desire to migrate to Canada. Their aspiration to permanently remain in Canada makes them willing participants in the BCPNP. The study also uncovers that Okanagan employers are actively supported by the German state in their recruitment efforts. Furthermore, the research documents that male skilled workers, while economically integrated, remain socially isolated in Canada; their wives are neither. Both, husband and wife, are forced into traditional gender roles. And last, the study chronicles how the BCPNP creates a vulnerable and precarious work force, which is willing to endure poor working conditions for the opportunity to migrate to Canada. The research makes policy recommendations to address precarities arising from BCPNP participation.Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan)History and Sociology, Department of (Okanagan)Graduat