4 Ways to Study and Work in Canada

Here’s a short guide covering facts and tips on how to study and work in Canada for both domestic and international students.

This guide is specifically for students who want to study and work in Canada notwithstanding their status as international or domestic students nor their program of study.

Certainly, of all the goodies you will enjoy while studying in Canada, you may still want to work during your study period as an international student in order to support yourself or gain exposure.

For international students, having work experience while you study abroad is a big plus to your professional CV, and most times it is advisable you should ensure to have the experience even if it has to be that you work without any official pay.

In Canada, students are paid per hour for working and as an international student, you can get permission to work for a maximum of ten hours per week after you must have spent over six months in the country.

There are reasons why international students are expected to spend at least six months at school before they can be permitted to work and one of the reasons is for them to be able to understand the system before rushing out for jobs.

There are a lot of opportunities open for students who study in Canada and it is very okay to get working experience as a student. Canadian schools support this too.

How To Study And Work In Canada

By working while studying in Canada, you get a great job experience especially if you have plans of applying for PR (permanent residence) ultimately.

You can apply to become a permanent resident of Canada after your studies though some scholarship opportunities do require their beneficiaries to return to their home country after their period of study. Such scholarships are usually third-party international scholarships.

Working in Canada as a student is a great experience to have but you just have to be careful not to let it weigh down your academics and learning as that is the number one reason you are in Canada.

On the Canadian student visa, you have the permission of working for 20 hours/week on a paid job and several hours on an on-campus unpaid job.

However this is the maximum number of hours, and you are free to work for a lesser number of hours. Usually, those students enrolled for difficult or intensive courses are recommended by the universities to work for a maximum of 12 hours a week.

This is because working for more than this number of hours can affect a student’s academic performance.

So you can reduce the number of working hours if you feel you are unable to maintain a work-study-life balance.

Study And Work In Canada

For part-time jobs, students are paid by hours. The rate of pay is around $10 an hour, on average.

If your aim is only to gain work experience, like helping your professor with research work, then you don’t need a work permit. This kind of work has to be on-campus and will be paying less; you can work beyond the stipulated number of hours.

So with just the student visa, you can still engage in academic work on-campus without applying for any extra work permit.

Though on-campus jobs are usually free, the person or department you are working for can decide to be giving you tips after work each day.

The thing is, the tip they give you isn’t considered an official payment so may not be at the rate of the official minimum wage per hour.

Nevertheless, some on-campus jobs still have official pay.

Step To Getting A Student Job In Canada

  1. Know which Job you can handle
  2. Know which Job would permit you to work for 20hours or less per week
  3. Apply for a Job in your study field if available
  4. Ensure your Job requirements are not against your study rules.

NOTE: There are several students Jobs in Canada, both on-campus and off-campus, paid and unpaid.

You can decide which one you want and which one you want to go for.

The unpaid jobs are most times done as volunteer works or used to gain experience in a field to build one’s professional CV.

Having known how to study and work in Canada, it would be best to plan yourself properly before ever thinking of traveling to Canada to continue your studies.

If an international student wishes to work off-campus, he can apply for an off-campus work permit after completing six months of study. That permit will allow the student to work for a maximum of 20 hours/week off-campus.

You may want to take a look at the list of low tuition universities in Canada and also make out time to read this guide on how to easily get admitted to a Canadian university.

Below are some other interesting topics on our platform you should read through too;

Do you have any more questions on how to study and work in Canada? you can drop them in the comment box, I will attend to them right away.

3 comments

  1. hello this manisha i am graduate form Delhi university nd i am just start my ilets but i am nt sure about it bcoz i m already done my graduation so there has MA options in canada ?

    1. If you able to get a good IELTS score, you can use it to apply for master degree in Canada.

Comments are closed.