Immigration Canada

New report brings small business to the immigration conversation

Published: Tuesday, Apr. 3, 2012 - 8:09 am

TORONTO, April 3, 2012 -- /PRNewswire/ - A new report released by ALLIES highlights new ways to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to hire skilled immigrants.

The report notes that SMEs face skills and labour shortages, and compete with larger businesses for skilled talent. However, due to a lack of HR personnel and resources, SMEs are underutilizing the skills and talents of immigrants in the workforce.

To address this, the report recommends:

Programs and services to SMEs should be marketed and delivered through individuals and organizations that SMEs trust, such as accountants, industry and professional associations, and peers;
That government and others provide more services to SMEs that facilitate workplace integration - all while making sure that their interactions with small business are simple, straightforward and fast; and
A public awareness and media campaign with national and local mainstream media to promote the benefits of hiring skilled immigrants in Canada.

"The potential impact of engaging SMEs in immigrant employment strategies can have significant positive outcomes for local labour markets across different sectors and regions," says Ratna Omidvar, president of Maytree. "In the private sector alone, SMEs employ 6.7 million Canadians. Effectively engaging SMEs will an enormous effect on SMEs, skilled immigrants, and on the Canadian economy."

This report highlights findings of a year-long study of new, innovative and promising initiatives that can help connect SMEs with the skilled immigrant labour pool. The findings draw on the input of nearly 300 SMEs from five Canadian cities, individual interviews, and an online survey conducted by the Conference Board of Canada. Earlier findings resulting from a review of policies and programs aimed at SMEs, and interviews with more than 50 stakeholders Canada-wide, were summarized in an interim report published in October 2011.

To download the report, visit the ALLIES website at http://alliescanada.ca/sme.

Version française.

Supportive quotes:

"Canada's future success depends on the ability of SMEs to take advantage of global opportunities. We know that the underemployment of highly skilled immigrants is costing the Canadian economy. Governments and communities can use some of these strategies to improve SMEs' ability to access highly skilled immigrant employees." - Anne Golden, President & Chief Executive Officer, Conference Board of Canada

"This report shines a light on the significance of SMEs on our economy, and the challenges they can face in recruiting top talent. Ontario's CGAs understand the needs of the SME sector and we are pleased that this research illustrates how accounting professionals can help SMEs thrive in an ever-increasingly competitive economy." - Doug Brooks, FCGA, CEO, Certified General Accountants of Ontario

"Canada is facing a skills crisis, and as the labour market tightens, access to skilled foreign-trained workers will be essential to the success of Canadian SMEs." - Honourable Perrin Beatty, President & Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies) supports local efforts in Canadian cities to successfully adapt and implement programs that further the suitable employment of skilled immigrants. The project is jointly funded by Maytree and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. http://www.alliescanada.ca.

Global Talent for SMEs is funded in part by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

SOURCE Maytree Foundation

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/03/4387419/new-report-brings-small-business.html#storylink=cpy

New approach proposed for immigrant recruiting

Toronto: TD Canada Trust Tower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When George Kelk Corp. is looking to recruit new employees, it sets its sights on Canada’s immigrant community first.

“Eighty per cent of our staff of 160 was born outside of Canada,” said Peter Kelk, president of the Toronto company, which makes instruments for mining and metal forming. “Since we export 98 per cent of our production, their understanding of how business is done in their home areas helps us enormously.”

The approach stands in stark contrast to the immigrant hiring practices of most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), according to a report released by Maytree on Tuesday.

Canada annually receives about 250,000 immigrants – many of whom have advanced degrees and skills that are in demand – but only a small fraction of them manage to land jobs at SMBs, which represent 64 per cent of new private-sector positions. The issue is two-fold, the report concludes: Smaller employers are often unaware of the skills immigrants bring to the table or how to reach out to them, while newcomers tend to focus their job hunts on well-known corporations.

“This represents a huge opportunity,” said Ratna Omidvar, president of study sponsor Maytree, a non-profit foundation that develops programs to integrate immigrants into the work force. The consultations for Global Talent for SMEs: Building Bridges and Making Connections, conducted by a division of Maytree, included 300 small-business owners in five focus groups across Canada, and individual interviews with entrepreneurs.

“They said they’re just as open to hiring foreign trained talent as anyone else. Their problem is they don’t have the connections to find immigrants with the skills they need,” Ms. Omidvar said. “They tend to hire just in time: it’s ‘who do you know and who’s in front of me?’”

The researchers also found that immigrant advocate groups have tended to focus only on big employers “because they are the ones who can come to the table during discussions and have the capacity in their HR departments to recruit and vet immigrant candidates,” Ms. Omidvar added.

A primary recommendation of the report is for a single point of SMB access to recruiting and hiring support for immigrants.

Small-scale programs of this nature already exist locally. Pat d'Entremont, partner with technology services company Nicom IT Solutions, said his 85-employee company has recently found immigrants for hard-to-fill positions through the Greater Halifax Partnership’s Connector Program, which helps immigrants expand their personal networks to connect with business people. The Nova Scotia government has also set up programs to encourage immigrant hiring, Mr. D’Entremont pointed out, including a job board for skilled immigrants and – in some cases – financial assistance.

The focus groups agreed SMBs would do better if there was an online data base of screened immigrant candidates. “They said they need something that is sector-wide and they would benefit from an HR advisory or consulting site that they could use when they’re looking for talent,” Ms. Omidvar said.

Lionel Carriere, president of mobile software company XEA Services in Edmonton, said he’d have immediate use for such a data base. “We’re a growing company facing challenges in finding people with the skills we need. But as a small enterprise, we don’t have access to tools and resources that would allow us to recruit foreign trained workers. Our only (hiring) option is for them to find us.”

In consultations with Maytree, Mr. Carriere recommended the agency that runs the data base also provide pre-screening of equivalency of international experience and reference checks, as well as assistance in supporting any new employee’s adaptation to Canadian culture.

Another recommendation in the report is for governments to provide wage and orientation subsidies as incentives for small employers, which can’t offer compensation at the same level as larger employers. These might include bonuses payable when an SMB hires an eligible skilled immigrant for at least 12 months, or a tax credit similar to the federal subsidy on Employment Insurance payments for small business hiring that was extended in the recent federal budget.

“Given the austere times, financial assistance programs, like first-job subsidies, are probably not going to be as likely to be available as an option, but we should keep it on the books for better times,” Ms. Omidvar conceded.

Most immediately, the report recommended targeting SMBs with information campaigns. “We want to use trusted intermediaries – services and institutions that SMEs use – to promote the programs and the advantages of tapping into the pool of skilled immigrants,” Ms. Omidvar said.

Most specifically, “the consultations found employers trust their accountants. We want to work with accounting organizations to provide information about services that are available and explain the advantages of hiring talented immigrants, particularly for a company that wants to develop a global market,” Ms. Omidvar said.

Maytree plans to do a pilot program with these ideas later this year, she said. They will look for partners in local communities, including governments, advocacy groups and colleges and universities, as well as leading employers.

“We don’t want to tell them what to do. Local employers know their particular sector and the needs of local employers. We want more SMEs to come out and tell us what will work.”

Ottawa’s insistence on high immigration levels during downturns questioned in report

icholas KeungImmigration Reporter

A new report on immigration outcomes questions Ottawa’s insistence on maintaining Canada’s high immigration levels despite a recession.

Bringing in a huge number of immigrants during an economic downturn could create an underclass of new Canadians caught up in adversity, said the study by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

“During recessions, economic outcomes deteriorate more among recent immigrants than among the Canadian-born,” said the report, “Making it in Canada: Immigration Outcomes and Policies,” to be released Wednesday.

“It also helps prevent longer-run economic ‘scarring’ that can occur when new labour market entrants are unable to obtain jobs or are unable to practice their skills over a long period.”

In 2010, Canada accepted 280,636 permanent residents, the highest level in over 50 years.

The paper also raised concerns over Ottawa’s drastic shift to gear immigrant selection more toward short-term, narrowly defined labour market needs, because demand for specific occupations can change quickly with the business cycle.

For instance, during the IT boom in 1990s, Canada launched a special program to target newcomers with backgrounds in computer science and engineering. The group was the hardest hit in the 2000 IT bust.

While Ottawa’s recent policy changes — tightening requirements, prioritizing applications with arranged employments and expanding the temporary foreign workers program — can address skills shortages in the short term, it runs the risk of swinging too far off the balance, the report said.

“We are going in the right direction, but we may be moving a bit too far,” said McMaster University economics professor Arthur Sweetman, who co-wrote the report with Garnett Picot, former director-general of research at Statistics Canada.

“It’s not bad to be a bit short-term, but how short-term do you want it to be?” asked Sweetman.

It is too early to assess the impact of the recent changes, but Sweetman said Canada needs to balance immigrants’ short-term economic outcomes with their long-term success, reflected partially in the second-generation’s performance.

The report said children of immigrants are doing as well as, or better than, those of Canadian-born parents. However, second-generation members of a visible-minority group, on average, have higher unemployment rates and lower earnings than their white third-plus-generation counterparts.

University graduation rates among children of immigrants from:

Africa: 50.1%

Caribbean: 27.8%

Latin America: 23.3%

China: 62.4%

Philippines: 33%

India: 50.1%

West Asia, Middle East: 41.1%

Other Asia: 44.8%

United States: 35.1%

United Kingdom: 33.3%

Germany: 33%

Italy: 31.4%

Portugal: 17.4%

Netherlands: 30%

Other northern and Western Europe: 36.8%

Eastern Europe: 41.1%

Other Europe: 34.5%

Children of Canadian-born parents: 23.8%

Source: Making It in Canada: Immigration Outcomes and Policies

List of Occupations for the Facilitated Labour Market Opinion Assessment Process in Quebec

The following is the list of 44 occupations that are part of Quebec's Facilitated Labour Market Opinion Assessment Process.

Local recruitment efforts do not need to be performed by employers as part of their applications to hire temporary foreign workers for any of the following occupations.

0112 Human Resources Managers
0611 Sales, Marketing and Advertising Managers
0621 Retail Trade Managers
1111 Financial Auditors and Accountants
1221 Administrative Officers
1222 Executive Assistants
1243 Medical Secretaries
2131 Civil Engineers
2146 Aerospace Engineers
2171 Information Systems Analysts and Consultants
2173 Software Engineers and Designers
2174 Computer Programmers and Interactive Media Developers
2231 Civil Engineering Technologists and Technicians
2232 Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians
2241 Electrical and Electronics Engineering Technologists and Technicians
2253 Drafting Technologists and Technicians
2282 User Support Technicians
2283 Systems Testing Technicians
3111 Specialist Physicians
3112 General Practitioners and Family Physicians
3113 Dentists
3114 Veterinarians

3131 Pharmacists
3141 Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists
3142 Physiotherapists
3143 Occupational Therapists
3152 Registered Nurses
3211 Medical Laboratory Technologists and Pathologists' Assistants
3214 Respiratory Therapists, Clinical Perfusionists and Cardiopulmonary Technologists
3215 Medical Radiation Technologists
3222 Dental Hygienists and Dental Therapists
3233 Licensed Practical Nurses
4131 College and Other Vocational Instructors
4141 Secondary School Teachers
4152 Social Workers
4212 Community and Social Service Workers
5125 Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters
6211 Retail Trade Supervisors
6221 Technical Sales Specialists – Wholesale Trade
7231 Machinists and Machining and Tooling Inspectors
7311 Construction Millwrights and Industrial Mechanics (Except Textile)
7312 Heavy-Duty Equipment Mechanics
7321 Automotive Service Technicians, Truck and Bus Mechanics and Mechanical Repairers
7333 Electrical Mechanics

Federal budget 2012: Skilled immigrants urge investments into talents already in Canada

Nicholas KeungImmigration Reporter

Source: The Star

Every evening after dinner, Naseem Ahmed Pasha would don his dress pants and dress shirt, and say goodbye to his three boys, telling them he was leaving for work in hospital.

By the time Pasha, a family doctor from India, got to his worksite, he would change into his uniform, the uniform of a security guard, for his 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at a Toronto condominium – for $8.50 an hour.

Before Pasha arrived Canada in 2006 under the skilled immigrant program, he was confident he would soon be able to use his skills and contribute to this country in a meaningful way.

After all, he has a medical degree from India’s University of Mysore and practiced medicines first in India and then in Saudi Arabia for 15 years. In his two years as a security guard here, he studied and passed all the qualifying exams and had his credentials certified.

Yet today, instead of treating patients and curing diseases, Pasha is sweeping floors and lifting heavy merchandise at a Toronto home improvement hardware store on survival wages.

“It’s a very tough pill to swallow,” said the 44-year-old, choking back tears. “I wasn’t prepared for this kind of jobs. But coming here, you have to survive and put bread on the table.

“I didn’t tell my kids because I come from a culture where being a doctor is an honourable and noble profession. Now my status has dropped, doing blue-collar jobs. It would have a bad impact on my kids.”

There are many highly educated and skilled immigrants like Pasha who have their skills wasted and look for Ottawa’s investment in the talents already here.

Of all the professions, physicians are probably the most highly regarded but also among the internationally-trained immigrants most likely to fail to get back into their field of training. (A Statistics Canada study found that 60 per cent of new immigrants failed to work in the same field.)

According to the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, a self-advocacy group, there are more than 7,500 immigrant doctors in Ontario alone, about 2,000, like Pasha, having passed the exams but unable to secure a residency spot, a prerequisite.

This week, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney proposed a new policy requiring applicants wanting to immigrate as federal skilled workers to have their foreign credentials assessed and verified before their arrival in Canada.

While the change is welcomed as it would give future migrants a better understanding of how their credentials are measured against Canadian standards and hopefully help them hit the ground running quicker, many like Pasha also fear those who are already here would be forgotten.

Although the Conservative government has tripled its immigrant settlement budget since 2006, it has reduced the investment in newcomers’ programs such as language training and employment services since 2010. Ontario alone has lost almost $75 million settlement funding. Further cuts are expected.

To address the issue of the waste of immigrant skills, Ottawa established the Foreign Credentials Referral Office in 2006 to provide better licensing information to newcomers and launched orientation sessions for approved immigrants before arrival. The program is available in 25 countries.

So far, the credentials referral office has developed the Pan-Canada assessment and recognition tools for eight occupations and physicians is one of the six target professions in 2012.

“Our government is building an immigration system that is focused on economic growth and ensuring that all Canadians, including immigrants, are able to contribute to their maximum capacity,” said Kenney.

In 2010, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario issued 3,708 postgraduate training certificates to physicians in residency training and practice certificates to others, including 636 international medical graduates.

However, Mitra Arjang of the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario said those international graduates are mostly made up of Canadian-born graduates from medical schools overseas.

“Residency program directors prefer residents to be young, to be familiar with the Canadian culture as much as possible. Immigrant doctors are real doctors and not just graduates with no experience. They are just too qualified,” said Arjang, adding that only a small number of those selected for residency are actual immigrant doctors.

It should be viewed as a health care issue when qualified physicians are prevented from practice as patients are made to wait for medical procedures and live without a family doctor, said Arjang.

The real solution, she added, is to offer transitional licenses for international trained physicians to work in a supervised environment to prove their skills.

“I don’t want to waste my skills. My parents made a lot of sacrifices for me to go through medical school. Canada must invest in skilled immigrants. It is good for us. It is good for Canada,” said Pasha, who has failed to secure a residency spot twice and is making a third attempt.

“I applied for a job as a ‘medical messenger’ to deliver drugs, but I’m not even good enough to deliver drugs.”

2012 Federal budget –- Penny Wise, Dollar foolish?

Canada (Photo credit: palindrome6996)

Ottawa gets rids of pennies, increases pension age from 65 to 67 and returns skilled workers applications filed before 2008

The 2012 Canadian federal budget announced by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will get rid of the penny coin for starters and is aimed to control government spending and create better economic times for Canada. Well that is the plan anyway. In detail the budget is targeting the civil service, future retirement benefits, will stabilize immigration quotas to skills shortages and expand Canada’s free-trade agreements.

“Our government is looking ahead not only over the next few years but also over the next generation,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told the Commons.

Amongst the reforms $11 million a year is expected to be saved by phasing out the one cent coin that actually costs 16 cents to produce. Canadians can continue to use pennies as long as they have them. When they don’t, cash purchases will be rounded up or down to the nearest five-cent increment.

Around 19,200 federal government jobs, with most of the cuts being felt around Ottawa and civil servants will also have to contribute more to their pensions and there will be a $115 million decrease in budget. There is also a $319 million cut to the Canadian International Development Agency; and $165 million to aboriginal affairs.

Ottawa will also spend $387 million to change how Employment Insurance benefits are calculated with a view to eliminating “disincentives to accepting all available work prior to applying to the EI program.” The impact will vary from region to region but some workers may find their benefits reduced or harder to obtain, officials said.

Younger Canadians will be forced to wait longer to collect Old Age Security payments, to 67 from 65. The change will be phased in and those aged 54 and older won’t be affected.

The defence department is being asked to find savings of $1.1 billion a year – However, the Canadian Forces’ strength of regular troops will be maintained at 68,000 and its reserve force at 27,000.

The government also provided $205 million to extend a tax break for small businesses who expand their workforce and $5 billion to renew the Canadian Coast Guard fleet.

There were no across-the-board changes in individual taxation.

Overseas Canadian diplomats will be moving into smaller premises, some properties will be sold. Even the Governors General will have to pay tax for the first time on their $130,000-plus salaries.

Regular Canadian shoppers in the U.S will be happy as the government wills as of this summer increase duty-free cross-border shopping limits to $200 for 24-hour trips and $800 for trips of 48 hours or more.

The government is hoping to cut back spending by $5.2 billion over the next three years.

Ottawa will run a $21 billion budget deficit in the 2012-13 fiscal years, with overall spending set at $276 billion. The Tories aim to balance Ottawa’s books by 2015.

Opposition NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said the deep cuts will hurt job creation.

“Instead they are slashing health care, they are slashing pensions. It’s a betrayal,” Mulcair told reporters. “In the long term, the continuation of these Conservative policies will leave the greatest economic, ecological and social debt in our history in the backpacks of future generations. That’s a result of the choices the Conservatives are making,” Mulcair said.

Liberal leader Bob Rae said the budget is “ignores environmental and economic problems and does not favour economic development in central Canada and they will suffer.”

Flaherty defended his budget saying, “We have no need to resort to the drastic cuts being forced upon some other developed countries today.”

Official Opposition Critic on Finance, Peter Julian, MP (Burnaby-New Westminster) said, “Instead of choosing flawed F-35s, costly mega-prisons while the crime rate is going down, and breaking their electoral promise with reckless and unnecessary cuts to OAS, the Harper government should focus instead on the real priorities of Canadian families and work to improve public services, develop a jobs plan, strengthen pensions, and make life a little more affordable.” Julian added, “The budget outlines the Conservative plan to raise the OAS eligibility age from 65 to 67, forcing seniors to work two years longer to make ends meet. It also unilaterally changes the funding formula for federal health transfers, short-changing provinces by a whopping $31 billion, opening the door to privatization and two-tier health care.”

People who travel outside of Canada for 24 to 48 hours will be able to return with $200 of tax-exempt goods. The previous limit was $50. Those who stay in the States longer than 48 hours can bring back $800, up from $400. The rules for same-day trips of less than 24 hours have not changed; travellers cannot bring back anything duty-free.

The same rules apply for Canadians who travel abroad.