Middle Eastern oil producers weren’t hit as hard by the recession as their counterparts in Alberta.

Yet that doesn’t mean Canadian oilpatch workers can launch a lucrative international career phase any time they like.

For one thing, the international talent pool is getting broader, so companies have new options when it comes to finding new skilled workers.

For another, overseas employers don’t have to pay as much when workers are plentiful, says Iqbal E. Ali, managing director of Petro Staff International — a Calgary-based staffing agency that specializes in the global oil and gas industry.

“Primarily for both upstream personnel and downstream personnel, the Arabian Gulf is probably the hottest spot. They did slow down with the downturn, but not significantly,” Ali says. “But I can tell you that they reduce their compensation packages when the market goes down.”

And while Canada, the United States and United Kingdom used to be the go-to countries for international energy workers, that’s changing.

“Nowadays, they are looking all over the world — North Africa, South American markets,” he says.

“Canadians continue to be hired, but a lot of factors come to influence those decisions – the compensation scales here, the cost of the Canadian dollar and the price of oil.”

For example, Albertans are only considered for downstream operations internationally at the supervisor level. Workers at the lower levels come from North Africa, the Far East and to a lesser degree, India, he says.

Most Canadians who work overseas fall into one of two categories: resident positions, where individuals and their families move permanently to another country; and rotational positions, where individuals’ families stays here and they rotate back and forth between their home and work countries for multi-week stints.

“One of the major selling points of residency positions is that if you become a nonresident of Canada, the income you earn becomes tax-free,” Ali says.

“In many cases, your housing and private schooling for your children are paid for, and you get annual holidays of anywhere from six to eight weeks.”

People are often attracted to the adventure of living in different culture and climate, and the professional satisfaction that comes from exposure to a different work environment.

The process of deciding to take one’s skills international, shopping for and then applying for the right position, being interviewed and eventually getting hired can take some time. But it’s still only the beginning of what has to happen to become an international worker.

“It can be anywhere from a one-month to six-month process, depending on how mobile a person is, how big a family they have, the timing of the school year. Those type of factors influence timing.

“And it is getting more difficult -companies now want to have degrees, marriage certificates and other documents attested or notarized and sometimes authenticated by the various embassies or the ministries of education.”

Meanwhile, the incentive to look for work overseas might be diminishing. The Alberta oilpatch is picking up, Ali says.

“We’re seeing more activity in the upstream sector of those Canadian companies with international operations. The positions are based in Calgary, but they pertain to assets overseas,” he says.

“We are working on some of the oilsands plants as well.”

Heather Gauthier, manager of the Vancouver-based InfoOil careers job board, sees a lot of oilsands job postings in both Fort McMurray and Lloydminster, and expects some Canadians who went overseas during the darkest days of the recession to be lured back home.

“We’re starting to see a lot of employers asking for expatriate Canadians to come home. There’s a lot more going on in Canada than a lot of people understand.”

Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada, executive director Cheryl Knight agrees things are picking up in Canada, although more slowly than was anticipated.

“There’s already demand for specialized skill sets and for workers in hard-to-recruit locations such as northern Alberta and British Columbia,” she says.

TAQA, an emerging, United Arab Emirates-based energy firm, has assets on four continents, but its heaviest recruitment area is here in Canada.

“We launched a very big recruitment campaign at the end of September. We’re looking for 50 positions right now, for our field operations in Alberta and Saskatchewan,” says David Johnson, vice-president of human resources for TAQA North, the company’s Canadian arm.

About half of those positions are for engineers and geoscientists; others are in the drilling and completion, finance, accounting and administrative areas.

“As we look to fill those 50 positions, applicants with international experience are very highly valued,” Johnson adds.

The company is hiring workers in other countries as well. Its Aberdeen, Scotland office is also in growth mode, and positions across the organization are filled as they become vacant. Still, the biggest push for new workers is here in Western Canada.

But if gaining professional experience overseas is high on your to-do list, working for a multinational company has its advantages.

“We have, on a few occasions, provided opportunities for Canadians to work on international assignments, to bring their expertise to our other assets on a temporary basis,” says Johnson.

“We’ve also moved a handful of senior people TAQA North people permanently to our headquarters in Abu Dhabi, and some Canadian technical and senior professionals work in the Middle East or Europe. We’re in the beginning steps of that sort of cross-fertilization at TAQA.”

TAQA also uses international travel to compensate for the fact its 2,800 employees are spread fairly thinly over many parts of the globe.

“It’s added a very rich element to the company culture.”