Last week, the government of Ontario announced a plan which will increase accessibility to internationally trained foreign workers. This comes from the province having a shortage of workers resulting in over 300,000 jobs going unfilled this past summer. For too long, the failure to recognize the skills and accreditations which foreign workers bring to Canada have impacted on the growth of the economy in Ontario.
Last week, the government of Ontario announced a plan which will increase accessibility to internationally trained foreign workers. This comes from the province having a shortage of workers resulting in over 300,000 jobs going unfilled this past summer. For too long, the failure to recognize the skills and accreditations which foreign workers bring to Canada have impacted on the growth of the economy in Ontario.
The First Legislation of its Kind
According to Minister McNaughton “I want to create a clear path for new Canadians to fully apply their skills here in Ontario. I'm proposing changes that, if passed, would really remove barriers for immigrants that they often face when they come here. This really is the first legislation of its kind in the country. It's a bold action really just to knock down these barriers and to speed up the process so immigrants can use their talent here in Ontario and ultimately earn bigger paychecks for themselves and their families."
What Do the Statistics Show?
Stories of engineers and physicians driving cabs (or Uber) are not the stuff of urban legend. There evidence supporting the need for these innovations is compelling. While labour shortages have been acute for many years (and are intensifying), research shows that internationally educated professionals face multiple barriers in gaining employment appropriate to their qualifications. Some of it is overt and systemic discrimination – as Oreopolus, Reitz and Banerjee demonstrated, when applicants had “foreign” sounding names they were 30% less likely to get called back for interviews, even more if they applied to small medium enterprises. While the call for highly skilled workers grows louder, 44% of internationally educated engineers are under-employed. Gaps in employment and wages have been demonstrated and are more acute for racialized and particularly Black immigrants. As they were more likely to be in services industries and precarious employment, COVID also hit these groups harder.
While applicants are given points in the immigration process, they seldom get employment commensurate with their skills. In 2016, only 37.7% of recent immigrants with a university degree had jobs requiring a university education, compared with 59.0% of Canadian-born youth. Conversely, 34.6% of recent immigrants with a university degree worked in jobs requiring no more than high school education, while only 16.0% of Canadian-born youth were in the same situation. Another study showed immigrants with an engineering degree were much less likely to be working in a STEM occupation (48%) than Canadian-born workers (66%). Many occupations in engineering are regulated professions, and immigrants may face more difficulties with foreign credential recognition in these professions. Certainly, successive Fairness Commissioners have focused on the need to streamline processes and facilitate accreditation and licensing processes.
At the same time, the evidence is clear the issue is not just about “fixing” the newcomers – upskilling and passing licensure exams - but also combatting bias to create more inclusive workplaces. Witness the fact Between 2006 and 2011 there was a 22.7 percent increase in the number of internationally educated license holders in Ontario, but at the same time, only an 11.5 percent increase in their rates of employment within their regulated professions. The issue is clearly not just barriers to regulated to professions but systemic discrimination in employment.
Words from Renowned Leaders in Diversity
Wendy Cukier, one of Canada's leading experts in disruptive technologies, innovation processes and diversity hailed the decision as a major step towards increasing economic benefits not only for immigrants but also a necessity to help grow the Canadian economy.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Dr. Alvin Curling, former Minister of Skills Development in Ontario. According to Dr. Curling we have waited a long time to address this issue which we all know will bring incredible benefits to our great province. Immigrants, especially trained professionals, coming to Canada have faced many layers of red tape in the form of excessive steps for equivalency and accreditation.
Of course, there is more to be done, particularly to address the opportunities to meet our intense health care crisis by removing barriers to employment for health care professionals, particularly nurses and physicians.
We cannot continue to celebrate our great Canadian diversity, while ignoring the achievements of immigrants by diminishing their value to Canada. This is a bold move by Ontario but a necessary one based on our present economic realties.
