I just want to add my two cents to this.
Having went through an aircraft engineering course in 2005, Ive seen the aircraft industry becoming more and more difficult to acquire viable employment.
I have contacted CAA and had a nice long talk with Tony Clifford and Eddie Russell and have decided to go forward with the training commencing in november 2008. Of course I asked about the future employment of ex-trainees and yes, they do say they are able to place trained hopefulls into airlines. HOWEVER... i am taking this with a grain of salt, considering the industry we are getting ourselves into.
Having that said, I am certainly not one to put too much trust into a shaken industry so Ive decided upon myself to also tack the flight instructors rating onto my training and have already sparked some interest from friends who work within other FTO's, two based in southern California and one based in Texas. I fully realise that this is just words and in no way a guarenteed job but it is interest and it is genuine (I have known these three guys for a few years)
What Im getting at, if you have failed to see, is that one cannot enter into this industry and expect a job coming out of it. It is just like any job in this industry, whether it be a Part 66 apprentice to a pilot with a freshly acquired ATPL.
The only viable way to explicidly guarantee a job coming out of this is if you were initially sponsored with an airline and were rated specifically for the airlines equipment. This is not an option anymore so self sponsorship along with self sponsored type ratings are a big requirement.
Also, CAA do offer a JAA conversion course if one wanted to convert their Transport Canada ATPL to a JAA license. There is a cost to this but one would be very nieve to expect this just handed too them. An FAA conversion is possible and is a lot easier to acquire than a JAA conversion.
A lot of you, including ex-CAA trainees, are putting way too much trust into an INCREDIBLY fragile industry! It is amazing what one can accomplish with some research.