In the bustling cafeteria of one of Ottawa’s many government buildings, sit Suresh, Myriam, Nadia and Judith, relaxing on their lunch break. 

As the reddish glow of a nearby Tim Hortons sign reflects on their faces, they seem just like the rest of the people in the cafeteria — chatty, busy and Canadian. But these four are not government employees. In fact, they’re unemployed.

They’re immigrants attending a Career Access for Newcomers workshop program offered through Lasi World Skills, a local non-profit organization that helps immigrants with integration.

According to Statistics Canada, the entire growth in Canada’s labour force in the next two years will come from new immigrants like these four, but their conversation is more focused on obstacles than opportunities.

“We have discovered that the labour market here is not easy [to get into] at all,” Nadia says.

Nadia is a high school teacher who moved to Ottawa from Algeria two months ago to give her daughters more religious freedom. She says she came against the wishes of her brother and two sisters living in Montréal, who told her it was too tough to get jobs in Canada.

 

NO CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

 

Immigrant service providers say one of the most significant barriers keeping new immigrants from gaining employment appropriate to their skill level in Canada is what has come to be known as the “Canadian experience” issue. Specifically, this means immigrants like Nadia are often required by Canadian employers to have previous work experience attained in Canada before they can even be considered for a job.

Canadian business representatives and academics give various reasons why some employers feel this is necessary, but advocates for immigrant employment say it often unfairly excludes new immigrants from the job market.

Although some Ottawa businesses say local employment initiatives have inspired them to hire more new immigrants, until more businesses become involved in such programs, immigrants and the organizations that help them say newcomers must take matters into their own hands and change employers’ minds.

 

EMPLOYERS INSECURE ABOUT FOREIGN BACKGROUNDS

 

“Canadian work experience is regarded as being very helpful in terms of ensuring that [the employer] is not taking as big of a risk as they would be without it,” says Dan Kelly, a senior executive at the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses.

Although Kelly has done research on the benefits that small to medium Canadian businesses can gain from hiring skilled immigrants, he says some of the employers he represents may be hesitant to hire an immigrant who does not have previous Canadian work experience.

Kelly says a reason for this is that employers may have a hard time assessing an immigrant’s educational background and comparing it to Canadian standards.

“I guess what they want to make sure of is that [the immigrant worker] is going to be able to adjust to the workplace that they have,” Kelly says.

Back at the cafeteria, Myriam says she has encountered employers’ uneasiness when it comes to assessing the value of a foreign education. Myriam is a lawyer from France who says she came to Canada for a chance to expand her professional horizons.

“Once your education is from abroad, it’s like . . . .Uh oh!” she says. “It’s like they feel insecure.”

Vinita Ambwani, a PhD student in management at Carleton’s Sprott School of Business, says there are also cultural explanations for employers’ insecurity in hiring new immigrants.

“A nation’s culture has a huge impact on organizational culture,” Ambwani says.

She says the process of an immigrant adapting to the work culture in a new country can take a significant amount of time, and this lag time may prevent certain employers from hiring new immigrants.

Originally from India, Ambwani moved to Canada in 1999 after her own experience of adapting to North American workplace culture in the publishing industry in New York.  She says even though her Indian degrees were assessed as equivalent to Canadian standards, it was her North American education and work experience that got her noticed by Canadian employers.

 

THE CATCH-22

 

Henry Akanko is the director of Hire Immigrants Ottawa, a networking community that encourages local employers to hire skilled immigrants by creating a link between the employers and immigrant agencies in the Ottawa area. He says regardless of the reasons behind the “Canadian experience” requirement, Canadian employers create a frustrating “catch-22” situation for immigrants by enforcing it.

If employers aren’t willing to give immigrants jobs because of this requirement, Akanko says, then where are they supposed to get the experience? 

He says because of this frustrating cycle, many immigrants are forced to opt for lower-level “survival jobs” that aren’t necessarily relevant to their career path. 

“So you have somebody who is highly qualified, who can contribute to this economy, and yet at the end of the day their skills are being woefully underutilized,” he says.

At the cafeteria lunch table, Nadia says she has already submitted to this reality.

“I would like to have a small job … only a small job,” says Nadia, adding that anything else will likely be too hard to find. Nadia ran a private language school in Algeria, but says she is aiming towards teaching kindergarten or daycare work here in Canada.

 

INITIATIVES WORKING TO HELP NEW IMMIGRANTS

 

Akanko says his team at Hire Immigrants Ottawa and other initiatives like the YMCA-YWCA Job Connect Program are causing local employers to open up their hiring practices towards immigrants. Hire Immigrants Ottawa currently has 32 businesses on its Employer’s Council of Champions, who the organization says have “committed to championing the issue of skilled immigrant employment.”

Likewise, through the job development arm of the YMCA-YWCA Job Connect program, businesses such as Convergys Ottawa say they are increasingly targeting the immigrant labour market in their hiring. Convergys is a multi-national company made up of 85 incoming call centres and other facilities that provide customer care for wireless services.

Juliette Smith, Convergys’s senior manager of recruiting, says her company is very aware of the Canadian experience catch-22 and wants to provide new immigrants with this Canadian experience through the Job Connect program.

“If you’re not able to get into your profession that you had in your previous country, here at Convergys … you can do meaningful work in the meantime,” explains Smith.

Smith says the YMCA-YWCA Job Connect program, provides Convergys a training subsidy that helps them set up one-on-one workshops to help immigrant employees enhance their communication skills, their knowledge of Canadian technical jargon and workplace protocol.

“This is a passion of mine because as a new immigrant I found it very hard to find employment,” says Smith, who emigrated from Jamaica 15 years ago. Smith says not only did she gain meaningful Canadian experience at Convergys, but she was able to regain her former career in management within the company.

 

PERSONAL ENTERPRISING A MUST FOR NEW IMMIGRANTS

 

Until more Canadian businesses begin to follow Convergys’ lead, immigrants must learn to be more assertive in job interviews, says Farida Awal, the manager of employment and settlement services at Immigrant Women Services Ottawa. She says 70 to 80 per cent of the women who attend her employment workshops are confronted by the Canadian experience question.

“We tell them [to ask] ‘can you please explain how Canadian experience is different than the experience in my resume?’ ” Awal says. She adds that immigrants need to emphasize their easily transferable skills to the employer.

Career coach Daisy Wright says she agrees. Personal enterprising is essential for immigrants, she says. Wright, who was once an immigrant to Canada herself, is the recent author of a book entitled No Canadian Experience, Eh?, a guide for immigrants on how to deal with barriers in their search for Canadian employment.

“I encourage people . . . not to just socialize with people within their own cultures,” says Wright, “because when you do that, you are not really tapping in to the network of people who can really help you . . .not only to help you to find a job, but help you to grow.”

“People like to do business with people they trust,” Wright continues, so immigrants should make an effort to get to know Canadian employers.

 

READY TO MAKE CONNECTIONS

 

After attending their two-week Career Access for Newcomers program, Suresh, Myriam, Nadia and Judith say they are aware that Wright’s advice could mean the difference between a career in their fields, and a survival job.

“Ninety per cent of jobs are hidden market in Canada,” says Suresh, quoting a figure he learned in class. “They are filled through the networking process.”

Suresh, who arrived from Sri Lanka two months ago, says he and his classmates have learned that getting involved with community projects, and trying to get into professional organizations can help them develop these networks.

As they pack up their lunches, the group has already begun to practice their networking. Nadia waves and says “hello” to a man who I am later told is an employment specialist, and Suresh asks for my business card in case he needs a contact at Carleton.