If you want to work abroad as a therapist, then learn about the housing crisis

Homeless in Canada...nah, just kidding. I was hanging out at the English Garden.

People have often asked me if I will ever move back to Canada for good. My answer is always, “I’m open to the possibility”. Especially now that upon further research, I found out that the prospect of working in Canada as an occupational therapist (OT) might eventually become feasible for me. It’s just that I have to weigh different factors before making a decision. The most important consideration, of course, is that I have family obligations here in the Philippines.

I also don’t feel a sense of urgency to leave because I currently have good job positions that are way better than many of the ones that are being offered in high-income countries. I get paid relatively well to help people without compromising my comfortable lifestyle. I’m thankful for that!

Then there’s the issue of the job fit between my capabilities and the available positions in Canada (where my family is) and in the US (where I want to explore different occupational therapy roles). I also need to consider which country is more practical to migrate to, given that I have job offers in Australia, and the other facilities there that I’m interested in are also hiring OTs. A recruitment agency can even help me cover the costs of migrating. Plus, I don’t need to sit for a licensure exam in Australia.

These are typically the factors that therapists consider before migrating. In the olden days, it was easier to answer such questions because the world was a lot simpler. Alas, things have changed for the worse and there are now even more issues to examine before uprooting your family to move to a foreign country. One of which is the housing crisis — and it can destroy your life.

Housing and rental fees: the not-so-sexy considerations when migrating

House prices and rental fees are skyrocketing in the West, which also includes Australia and New Zealand. The bad news is that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel yet. From what I gathered, landowners have to charge higher rental fees due to interest rate hikes that are driven by rising inflation. Another factor that’s causing the rental price growth is population increase in the West. The greater the demand is for the limited supply of housing, the higher the house prices and rental fees will be.

What also hurts tenants is the growing monopoly in real estate. Corporate landlords have bought off many properties from their (possibly financially struggling) former owners, and are now charging higher fees that renters can’t afford.

Building more residential areas to meet the demand for them is a difficult endeavor. First, you’ve got to have the laborers to do that, which are also in short supply in the West. Second, the current economic crises are rendering many resources for construction unaffordable.

Consequently, rental fees remain high due to the limited supply of houses especially in big cities where most work establishments are. Many people are therefore at risk of becoming homeless, as even well-paid professionals are getting priced out of residential areas.

A crisis that leads to another

If people are spending more money on housing and rental fees, then they are spending less on other goods and services, which are becoming more expensive too. Different sectors would then have low productivity. When businesses don’t produce, they lay off workers and don’t hire as many people as they previously did. So if you’ve sponsored family members to migrate with you, they will most likely face bleak job prospects.

Fewer workers will most likely mean lower productivity (unless jobs get taken over by robots —- hmmm, is that what they want to happen?). If the supply of goods and services remain low even as the demand for them increases, then their prices will remain high. Hence, therapists working abroad can end up with third world lifestyles in a first world country.

Possible racial tensions

Immigrants might eventually find themselves to be at the receiving end of resentment among some natural born citizens over the housing crisis. International students are already getting blamed. Honestly, some of them are abusing the system.

Of course, the legal migrants didn’t mean to bring economic disaster. Many of them are a positive contribution to their host countries. But MASS MIGRATION is destructive because no country has unlimited resources for everyone! While it’s not the only factor that drives up rental fees, allowing unprecedented numbers of foreigners into a country does increase the demand for housing. Western governments should therefore reduce immigration to more reasonable levels among people with the skills for building houses.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are also among the professionals that the West can invite to fill REAL labor shortages. I emphasize the word “real” because I hope that we foreign HCWs are not being used to fill artificially created vacancies because employers don’t want to pay the locals the right salary.

Am I saying that you shouldn’t go abroad because of the housing crisis? Of course not! The West is awesome in spite of that! Even if I love my country and I’m grateful for the great opportunities here, the Philippines is overall rotten. That’s why I’m open to the possibility of working abroad one day. It’s just that life in the West is also difficult. You need to carefully weigh different issues to determine if migrating with your family is worth it. If you don’t, you might become very disappointed. And possibly homeless.