Each week Get In The Know scours the web for news and events related to immigration and newcomer settlement and employment and shares its findings here!
The news and events focus on what’s happening in Surrey and surrounding communities but, when relevant, you will also find news and events at a provincial and national level. To stay current with newcomer issues, visit each week and subscribe to our weekly bulletin.
News
Workplaces can no longer afford to ignore employee well-being
By Jennifer Moss | CBC News | July 20, 2021
The early days of the pandemic caused a major disruption in how we work and those ripple effects are still being felt today.
Multiple surveys continue to warn of a mass departure across the Canadian workforce. According to one survey by the Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation, 42 per cent of Canadian employees say they’re considering changing their job or entire career in the next year.
Recruiting firm Hays, in their annual salary guide found that half of Canadian employees are “seriously considering leaving” their jobs.
Health care has been particularly threatened with massive attrition. In an issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), job vacancies in Canada’s health-care sector were up more than 56 per cent from the previous year, while vacancies in the nursing sector increased by 40 per cent to a shortage of 98,700 nurses.
These national polls mirror global data. A Microsoft survey of 30,000 global employees found that 41 per cent are planning to quit or change jobs in the next six months.
In an already competitive market for talent and a skills shortage, this could have a huge effect on the economy. Plus, when it comes to the shortages in healthcare, the community impacts would be catastrophic.
How To Build Diversity In Your Business
By Morgan Brown, President and Co-Founder of Oakwyn Realty | Forbes | August 17, 2021
When building a company, you must decide the core values that represent your brand. For myself, that meant sitting down and evaluating my experiences so that I could bring something transformative to the industry. As a young woman from a minority background, I began my career by learning the many obstacles that face those who come from minority groups, whether that means gender, race or another marginalized identity. Learning to overcome these challenges and grow from them has been one of my greatest learning experiences and one that I continue to embrace as one of the leaders of Oakwyn Realty.
Statistics Canada has found that 75.6% of women were participating in the labour force, almost 12% less than men. This earning power is even more decreased amongst minority, immigrant and indigenous communities. Our company was founded by three agents, all of whom come from a minority background, with two of us being women. As a result, we not only recognize the importance of diversity, but also the power and strength that it brings to our team. Together we have made it our priority to build an inclusive company, where diversity is more than an office buzzword.
Invite New Ideas
Including diversity in your business structure is an opportunity to introduce new ideas into your company. (more…)
As workers retire or quit, demand for skilled immigrants booms in Canada
By Colin Singer | Canada Immigration News | August 13, 2021
A senior economist says the demand for immigrants to fill jobs is expected to skyrocket this year as companies resume operations and their employees start retiring and quitting their jobs in much greater numbers than they did last year.
In his latest report, Will A Return To Pre-Pandemic Retirement And Job Quitting Levels Worsen Emerging Labour Shortages In Canada?, Bank of Canada senior economist Andrew Agopsowicz reveals fewer people were ready to leave their jobs during the height of the pandemic.
Being more than diverse: How to be inclusive of immigrant hires in the workplace
By Aneela Zaibm, CEO and founder of EmergiTEL | Recruiter.com | June 16, 2021
Many businesses aim to be diverse employers, but are they inclusive? It’s important to practice both diversity and inclusion in order to help your employees thrive in your workplace.
Diversity is a fact; inclusion is a practice. Diversity refers to the makeup of one’s workforce, the variety of identities, backgrounds, and experiences that every employee brings to the table. Inclusion, on the other hand, is the process that facilitates participation and success for every member of the team.
New Alternative Recognition of Credentials project for construction industry
The Construction Foundation of BC has launched a new project called ARC (Alternative Recognition of Credentials).
The ARC initiative offers skilled immigrants and newcomers an accelerated foreign credential assessment for previous electrical and welding trade experience gained outside of Canada. The process includes mapping experience and training to BC jobs, trades certification, and regulatory structures. Participants are eligible if they have been in Canada for less than five years and have foreign training or work experience.
Diversity and inclusion in Canadian workplaces
By Johnny Zhang and Radhika Panjwani | Canadian Immigrant magazine | August 19, 2021
Conversations about the diversity and inclusion in the workplace have become more mainstream, given the shift in Canada’s demographics. With the number of immigrants steadily increasing every year, these conversations have become even more critical.
Diversity in the workplace refers to having and welcoming people from different cultures, genders, sexualities, disabilities and ethnicities and voices. In short, it means having a heterogenous workforce of distinctive perspectives and experiences that’s reflective of the society in which an organization operates in.
While often used in tandem with diversity, inclusion is a concept of its own. Inclusion in the workplace means making sure those people have equal access to opportunities and resources – the room to grow, get recognized and be promoted – and can contribute fully to the organization’s success. If diversity is about assembling a workforce from different backgrounds and experiences, inclusiveness is ensuring that the social norms and behaviours in place make employees feel they can fully participate.
Indo-Canadian Radhika Nath (name changed), who has worked with the nonprofit sector in Toronto for over a decade, can see this shift.
“I have seen the understanding of inclusion starting to emerge. A company I worked with three years ago had no immigrants on their board or in their senior management. While they were starting to pay attention to diversity, the handful of immigrants working there were admin staff and one accountant,” she says.
Why the unconscious is the path of least resistance to eradicating bias in your workplace
By World Economic Forum | July 29, 2021
In many parts of the world, bigotry is on the rise. Attacks, both verbal and physical, against various groups are being reported. The COVID-19 outbreak has fueled anti-Asian discrimination and deadly violence. Anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish people – the most targeted religious group for hate crimes in the United States and Canada – have been spiking around the world. These developments come after years in which nearly three-quarters of Black Americans said the Trump presidency made race relations worse.
In addition to the human costs of discrimination – both violent and otherwise – there are economic ones as well. As the World Economic Forum’s Joseph Lasavio explained in a column for the International Monetary Fund: “The wealth gap between American whites and Blacks is projected to cost the US economy between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion in lost consumption and investment between 2019 and 2028.”
And in France: “GDP could jump 1.5 percent over the next 20 years – an economic bonus of $3.6 billion – by reducing racial gaps in access to employment, work hours and education.”
Workplaces can play a major role in helping combat bigotry. Unfortunately, their efforts very often go wrong, wasting huge amounts of time and money without getting results.
Considerations on the journey to greater equity, diversity and inclusion
By Kendra MacDonald, CEO, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster | Forbes | August 17, 2021
Growing up, my father was diagnosed with lupus. Without going into all the details, he had trouble walking around the block and was exhausted after a day’s work. Before he passed away, he spent his final years in a wheelchair. He could no longer work, and I watched him struggle to access care and transportation.
Despite having spent years as a child watching my dad struggle, it is as a mother, watching my daughter struggle in a different way, that I have started to really understand how hard that struggle can be. My daughter is adopted from Kazakhstan, and she has a cleft lip and palate. The first time she was called “flat nose,” she was five years old. I never imagined we would be having a conversation about bullying that soon. Children were scared of her cleft lip and were challenged to understand her, making it harder for her to fit in.