Local Agency Launches Initiative to Assist in Hiring the Right Fit

Internationally educated professionals often come to Canada and find themselves unable to find work. That’s partly because many small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) don’t have the tools or support to find, hire and integrate those newcomers into the workforce.

But SMEs will soon be able to change all that. “Think Talent, Think Global” is an Employment Ontario initiative funded by the Government of Ontario and hosted by Social Enterprise for Canada (SEC) designed to help SMEs integrate skilled immigrants into the work force.

SEC conducted market research in York Region and Toronto to investigate the barriers SMEs face when hiring internationally educated professionals (IEPs). It found many SMEs lack the tools and supports to effectively integrate newcomers into their organizations, which contributes to higher rates of unemployment and under-employment of skilled immigrants compared to the Canadian-born. Immigrant labour market integration is a particularly significant issue, considering local demographic and labour market trends in these areas.

As a result of demographic trends and the changing nature of the Canadian job market, it is predicted that there will soon be severe labour shortages in most occupational sectors.
 

• Approximately one-third of Ontario's population is of the "baby boomer" generation and will retire in the coming years. This, combined with the decline in the Canadian birth rate, will significantly increase the demand and competition for skilled workers.
   
• The projected shortfall of workers in the province will be at least 200,000, and could reach as high as 1.8 million by 2031, according to the Ontario Ministry of Finance.
   
• While the manufacturing sector has traditionally dominated – and still remains vitally important – today there is a relative decline in this sector and the emergence of increasingly knowledge-based and service jobs. This trend means that the economy will require a workforce that is more educated, trained and skilled than ever before.
   
• Most immigrants to Canada and Ontario are highly educated. In Ontario, 72 per cent of prime working age immigrants have a university degree, compared with 25 per cent of Ontario’s population in the same age category.

Launching December 1st, SEC’s new web-based initiative is a resource that will offer tools to help SMEs integrate skilled immigrants into the workforce. This benefits businesses in their search for talent, as well as skilled immigrants in their search for jobs that match their skill levels. The website will be available at:

www.thinktalentthinkglobal.ca