The past week has been a tough one. The place where I worked was shut down, so I am officially unemployed. I have spent the past week making calls, posting employment wanted ads and literally pounding the pavement/knocking on doors searching for a new job.
I have many avenues in which to search. I am a certified and experienced massage therapist, an experienced elder companion with CPR certification. I have a tremendous amount of fashion knowledge, everything from luxury brands to Old Navy). I would be a great salon or spa assistant. I am open to a wide variety of jobs up to and including cleaning houses. I’ve even been told that I write well.
The bad economy isn’t helping things. The most difficult hurdle I have to overcome, however isn’t that times are tough all over, it’s that I am an Anglophone living in Quebec. Even though the area in which I live is mostly English-speaking, the Province has a law that says, any company that employs more than 50 people, must offer fully bilingual service. We had an election last month in which the Parti Québécois won the leadership of Quebec and now, the first thing on their to do list is to change the language law so that any company with more than 11 employees must be fully bilingual.
It’s not like I don’t speak some French, but I am not anywhere close to being fluent. I have always been able to get by with the amount of French I can speak, but all of a sudden, it has become a real issue that could keep me from getting hired. I love where I live, but under the circumstances, I may have to look into moving to an English-speaking province (ie. any other province in Canada) in order to give myself a better shot at a new job.
It’s only been a week, so thinking about a move is incredibly premature, but I wouldn’t be the only one upping stakes after the election. This week, the Huffington Post reported a story about Quebecers flocking to Ontario in the wake of the change in leadership. It’s stories like this that make me nervous. If business owners are leaving the province because of the new language laws, they take jobs with them, leaving less opportunity and making it less and less realistic for me to stay.