Walter Enciso has advice for fellow Mexicans: head up to Canada and pick cherries for four months and then take the rest of the year off.
Enciso went on TikTok this week to encourage others to follow his example and work in Canada for the cherry picking season. He says cherry pickers can make up to 3,500 pesos (US $175) daily, a far cry from the 200-peso-a-day salaries that can be found in many office jobs in Mexico.
“You come, you work a while … three, four months, and you make enough money to live very well in Mexico for the year and you can forget about the terrible salaries and the terrible trap that is, unfortunately, Latin America,” said Enciso, who uses the handle @soywalter.enciso.
Enciso said he entered Canada on a tourist visa and then applied to work on cherry farms with little experience and no English.
His TikTok video went viral with many users commenting that they wanted to do the same thing and that Enciso should share how he got to Canada and connected with the farms where he worked. Enciso warned fellow Mexicans considering the trek that they should have between 30,000 and 40,000 pesos in the bank (US $1,500 to $2,000) before making the trip so that immigration will be willing to let them in as tourists and also in case they arrive at a farm and there are no jobs left.
According to Enciso, the cherry picking season in Canada is between July and August, and he recommends paying attention to pickers’ groups on Facebook, where workers share information about jobs on farms. Some farms post job offers there and choose workers, then it is up to the worker to obtain a tourist visa and buy a flight to Canada. Canada, along with many countries, is currently experiencing a shortage of agricultural workers and looking into ways to make temporary immigration an easier process.
