Store manager in Sydney says she's inundated by international students desperate for work

A store manager in Sydney, N.S., says large numbers of international students from Cape Breton University (CBU) are flooding her with resumes and heartbreaking stories about their desperate searches for housing and jobs.

Tasha Myers, who runs the Hallmark card store at the Mayflower Mall near the university, says it's difficult having to tell students on a daily basis there are no job openings.

Myers and franchise owner Liam Vance both say CBU and its agents overseas need to do a better job of providing students with realistic expectations for housing and work.

"I had a student yesterday come in telling me that her recruiter just full-out lied to her saying that the opportunities are crazy and that housing is the best and there's so many jobs and then she got here and it was the complete opposite," said Myers.

Myers said she gets up to a dozen resumes a day when it's slow and up to 20 or more on a busier day and it's been that way since the store opened a year ago.

She keeps a stack of resumes behind the counter and regularly has to get rid of them when the pile gets too big.

"We do let them leave their resumes behind and they stack up to the point where we can't even manage them in a drawer anymore," Myers said.

"Just in the last couple of days we have at least, I don't know, 60."

The worst part is having the students break down and tell Myers their troubles, she said.

"Every day we're having people come in who are angry, who are sad, who are depressed beyond," Myers said.

"The tears are coming down their eyes as you tell them no and it takes a lot out of you as a human being. It really does.

"It's upsetting to see the way things are going. It's upsetting to see how many people are struggling, how many people who are coming from a different country with nothing and not even a job."

Vance owns other Hallmark franchises in addition to the one in Sydney and said his stores in Truro, Halifax and Saint John, N.B., don't have the same problem.

He said CBU has obviously struggled with the rapid increase in its student population and should do better.