This report examines experiences of refugees that have settled in Newfoundland and Labrador and analyzes factors that can potentially enhance refugee integration and factors that can negatively impact their settlement experiences and retention in the province. The potential demographic and economic benefits of refugee settlement in the province cannot be realized if refugees come but then choose to leave.
Researchers interviewed 114 refugees and 16 stakeholders in the settlement sector.
The report is divided into broad categories, including welcoming communities; settlement assistance; language training/learning; health care; cost of living and housing; economic and labour market integration.
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Retention-integration-of-refugees-in-Newfoundland-2018.pdf" title="Retention & integration of refugees in Newfoundland (2018)"]
AAISA’s Health of the Newcomer-Serving Sector in the Prairies and Northern Territories (PNT) Region research project sought to examine the perspectives of front-line staff working within agencies in the newcomer-serving sector to better understand their employment experience, assess organizational strengths and challenges, as well as discern opportunities for growth.
With 912 responses from across the PNT region, the results of the HOTS survey provide uniquely invaluable insight into the realities of front-line service delivery in the PNT region and potential opportunities for improvement in service of broad sectoral health.
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Health-of-the-Newcomer-Serving-Sector-AAISA-2022.pdf" title="Health of the Newcomer-Serving Sector - AAISA (2022)"]
This Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) report provides insights on barriers to immigrant women’s employment and offers recommendations on how to better support their career entry and growth in the GTA.
In the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), immigrant women face underemployment, wage gaps and underrepresentation in executive positions. To shed light on their job search and workplace experiences, the TRIEC collected data from 365 immigrant women immigrant women professionals who arrived in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) between 2011 and 2020. The data collected on through surveys and interviews. They also surveyed 608 hiring managers and decision makers in the region who were involved in hiring and strategic decision making.
Key Findings
Regardless of their backgrounds, the search for a job in their field in the GTA was challenging. Close to nine in 10 respondents characterized their job search as difficult. The most common driver for coming to Canada was to find better employment and nearly three quarters of respondents started their job search on arrival. Among those who delayed their job search, childcare responsibilities or pregnancy was the main reason. For 48.2% of respondents, it took more than six months to land their first job in the GTA.
About half of the respondents (51.2%) identified a lack of Canadian work experience as a major barrier to finding a job in their field, making it a more common impediment than a lack of professional references (44.1%) and networks (42.2%) in Canada. Largely due to the “Canadian experience” requirement, respondents struggled to find commensurate employment and, as a result, 57.5% opted to downgrade their educational achievements and/or experience to get their foot in the door at lower positions than they were qualified for.
Respondents also took on unpaid work to gain experience in their fields (43.0%), changed or shortened their names (21.9%), altered their accents (15.3%) and changed their appearances (13.7 %) to “fit” perceived employer expectations. Additionally, possibly as a way to compensate for Canadian experience , about two thirds (64.4%) of respondents pursued or are pursuing further education since arrival.
To help find work, nearly all respondents used some type of employment related service or program. Satisfaction with these supports was mixed. Several respondents said that the supports helped them to build job search skills, understand Canadian culture and cultivate personal connections with other newcomers. However, respondents also felt that services and programs sometimes did not reflect their needs. They also recognized that the capacity of these programs and services to improve employment outcomes for immigrant women depends on the priorities set by funders and the openness of employers to diverse talent.
Despite a common belief that networking is important, more respondents (34.0%) secured their first job in the GTA by applying for an advertised vacancy, than by relying on social connections (21.1%), job fairs (4.5%) or networking events (6.6%) 6.6%). Similarly, more hiring managers said their organizations relied on online recruitment platforms, social media and their website than employee referrals, internal hiring or networking/industry specific events.
At the time of the survey, 82.7% of respondents were employed. Two in five respondents were in lower level jobs than they last held before immigrating , cancelling the gains they made in their previous countries. One in five employed respondents held senior management, executive or C level positions before immigrating to Canada, but just 7.6% held positions at these levels at the time of the survey. Even so, many respondents remained optimistic. About half of respondents believed they were on track to achieve the career aspirations they had before arriving in Canada.
Employers have strategies to attract immigrants but fewer help immigrants grow their careers . Two thirds (66.7%) of hiring managers at large organizations, 48.6% at mid sized organizations and 55.3% at small organizations said they have a strategy or deliberate actions to attract immigrants. However, when it came to helping immigrants advance in the workplace, only about one third of hiring managers surveyed said their organizations have clear communications on pathways to career advancement, recognize international training and experience for promotion, and/or provide coaching for leadership opportunities.
Gaps in employer practices show in the overall results on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
Recommendations
This report summarizes an IRCC-funded Service Delivery Improvement (SDI) project that focused on emerging technologies and helping clients transition to work through Occupation-specific Language Training (OSLT) and Formation linguistique axée sur les professions (FLAP). The report includes details about the activities undertaken by Colleges Ontario and the 12 participating colleges as well as what was learned and how it could be applied to ongoing OSLT/FLAP delivery. It also includes information about the guiding design principles developed during this SDI project – ideas that curriculum developers could consider when developing and planning the delivery of online language courses.
The overall objectives of this SDI project were to
The document provides a number of project insights in these areas:
This report looks at the extent to which Web 2.0 (interactive and social media tools) are being used in the Community Work Sector in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to advance, facilitate, and support non-profit and community services work. It examines Community Work Sector student digital capabilities and training. It is a useful, specific exploration of digital fluency skills, knowledge, and attitudes/values frontline community and social service workers should aspire to, within a social justice lens. A very relevant Canadian exploration for our sector to reflect on to ensure that digital fluency competency efforts are aligned with digital inclusion, anti-oppression, and social justice efforts in our sector.
The authors argue that a critical digital pedagogy approach should be taken to ensure that future practitioners will develop digital fluency skills, thereby equipping themselves to better respond and adapt to technological changes: "A critical approach to online teaching implicitly aligns with community work as it is rooted in anti-oppressive practice, respect for human rights and social justice. So, while skill development - both soft skills like judgement and hard skills like live-tweeting a community meeting - are key components of equipping learners for digital transformations, just as important is development of good critical digital media fluency as foundational to student curriculum."
Report overview and findings
Critical Digital Fluency in the Community Work Sector: Identifying Gaps and Addressing Needs is a qualitative research report that interrogates the extent to which Web 2.0 (interactive and social media
tools) are being used in the Community Work Sector in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to advance, facilitate, and support non-profit and community services work. Simultaneously, the project examines students’ digital capabilities and training; listening carefully to their recommendations.
The authors conducted semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with 21 agency representatives across eleven community work sector organizations. One hundred and four students offered input through a focus group and two online surveys. They also mapped twenty non-profit job postings requiring digital skills.
The study revealed the following findings across several themes:
Critical digital fluency is a must – Through the course of this research project it has become clear that just as digital technology is constantly advancing and transforming, so too digital skills need to provide both a solid footing in some key, core skills and also teach a level of adaptability and innovative responsiveness to rapid changes and platform development. Given recent developments concerning the abuse and misuse of social media, it is vital to embrace a holistic approach to curriculum development in which students gain a critical digital fluency enabling them to engage in critical analysis as they adapt and respond to the latest technological developments.
Learners feel unprepared – The research indicates that students recognize the importance of social media and other digitally-based skills. They also recognize that they are not receiving the training that they need.
Insufficient curriculum focus - Students and agency representatives both point to the gap in curriculum in developing critical digital fluency skills that ultimately would help students be job-ready in the 21st century and help agencies meet currently under-resourced needs. Overwhelmingly both participant groups recognized the importance of core program curriculum in critical digital fluency.
Agencies use social media - Certain assumptions surround non-profits and their use of social media and digital technologies. The findings in this research demonstrate that agencies use social media for much more than creating an ‘online profile on facebook.’ Either through intentional integration or the organic process of responding to clients’ needs, agencies are using these tools not just for back-end work (public profile, fundraising, networking) but for front-end frontline work. This is an area that needs much more intentional thought.
Agencies need support - Agency precarity has only increased in recent years, amplifying funding shortfalls and increasing employee workloads. Research findings demonstrate that this situation manifests itself in several ways when it comes to constraining agency digital fluency. Social media work is often hidden or tacked on to existing work rendering it ‘hidden labour’, there is a lack of funds (core funding) geared to agencies for training, tools, and consistency and a general lack of organizational policies to help workers put parameters on their work, ensure agency consistency across platforms and help guide ethical considerations when working with vulnerable populations. Together, these unique considerations for increasing digital fluency in the non-profit sector need to be visibilized and addressed.
Institutional Support - While originally not part of the research design, a clear role for institutional (GBC) support for community partners became evident through the data analysis. Agencies need support and the CW Program is well-placed to not only ensure students gain the skills they need but also to create partnerships with the non-profit sector and offer professional development opportunities to ensure current agency staff are well-equipped to respond to the technological era.
The authors make recommendations across four main areas:
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Critical-Digital-Fluency-in-the-Community-Work-Sector-Identifying-Gaps-and-Addressing-Needs-2019.pdf" title="Critical Digital Fluency in the Community Work Sector - Identifying Gaps and Addressing Needs (2019)"]
Abstract
"This paper argues that recent changes brought about by COVID-19 highlight that computational advances need to incorporate human rights throughout design and development stages, extending well beyond technical feasibility. This also extends beyond tech company references to inclusivity and transparency and requires analysis of systemic risks to migration and mobility regimes arising from advances in AI and related technologies.
Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in migration and mobility have incrementally expanded over recent years. Iterative approaches to AI deployment experienced a surge during 2020 and into 2021, largely due to COVID-19 forcing greater reliance on advanced digital technology to monitor, inform and respond to the pandemic.
This paper critically examines the implications of intensifying digitalization and AI for migration and mobility systems for a post-COVID transnational context:
Conclusions
"Digitalization and AI technologies have been progressively utilized in migration and mobility. As analysed in this paper, the advancement of AI and digital technologies through the Migration Cycle has extended beyond its initial focus on pre-departure and entry. AI and digital technologies are also a feature of stay and return programs and initiatives. Examples include the digitalization of visa and asylum applications and processing, automated security checks at borders and AI-powered immigration information chatbots. Digital technologies and AI in migration and mobility are likely to continue expanding in the upcoming years...
The protection of migrants’ human rights can be particularly affected by the advances in digital technologies and AI, notably due to the inherent power imbalance between migrants and public authorities. For example, algorithmic bias may exacerbate existing inequalities and lead to unlawful discrimination, which can significantly affect migrants. Similarly, the intensification of migrant surveillance practices has considerable effects on the protection of migrants’ right to privacy.
In addition, digital technologies and AI are likely to impact international migration patterns over time, affecting long-term migration trends and migration corridors. In particular, the potential for increased automation and AI in certain areas of work and occupations, also motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, may disrupt migration and mobility and even render the recourse to many migrant workers obsolete in key destination economies.
Accordingly, human rights should be incorporated in the design and development of digital technologies to mitigate potential risks to migrants’ human rights. Similarly, decision-makers deploying these technologies should consider the systemic risks to migration and mobility regimes arising from advances in AI and related technologies. That is even more crucial in light of the transnational implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for migration and mobility."
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Digitalization-and-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Migration-and-Mobility-Transnational-Implications-of-the-COVID-19-Pandemic-2021.pdf" title="Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in Migration and Mobility - Transnational Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic (2021)"]
Abstract
Drawing on an extensive review of recent literature about resilience and integration, this paper evaluates a social resilience approach to the integration of newcomers in Canadian cities. The authors advocate a social resilience approach that acknowledges how institutions of all types play critical roles in newcomers’ efforts to establish their lives in new places, especially when faced with unanticipated events such as a global pandemic.They outline the distinguishing characteristics of social resilience, explain its relevance to contemporary immigrant integration, and propose a research agenda from a social resilience perspective to enhance understanding of immigrant integration and the policies and programs that will facilitate it.
Centering research around the concept of social resilience goes beyond the neoliberal idea that integration is primarily an individual affair achieved with support from friends, family, and a nebulous community and draws attention to the social diversity of migrants and the complexity of their migration and settlement histories. In terms of public policy, the social resilience perspective speaks to the necessity of an inclusive approach to economic and social recovery and restructuring—the need to “build back better” post-pandemic.
Inherently relational, a social resilience approach encourages comparative studies of integration across cities that can reveal how different institutions and their programs affect migrants’ trajectories. Detailed examinations of local institutions and their responses to shifting selection and integration policies, especially during a pandemic, also hold the potential to provide crucial information for supporting newcomers effectively.
The authors proposed research agenda should seek to enhance understanding of integration and add to the growing literature about social resilience. The research agenda should advocate an in-depth examination of the social characteristics of migrants to recognize their diverse needs and intersectional challenges followed by an inventory of organizations and their roles to understand the local institutional contexts where international migrants live. Building on this background information, the research agenda calls for longitudinal and comparative research that captures the dynamic nature of integration and examines institutional responses to support integration in different national and urban contexts, especially during the current crisis.
Research informed by a critical social resilience approach will not only inform ongoing debates about services for international migrants in Canada and elsewhere, it will also contribute to efforts to challenge neoliberal views of resilience, especially for international migrants whose arrival and presence will pose challenges long after the COVID-19 pandemic resolves.
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Migration-and-Resilience-in-Urban-Canada-Why-Social-Resilience-Why-Now-2021.pdf" title="Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada - Why Social Resilience, Why Now (2021)"]
This paper presents the current knowledge of how newcomers and migrants are being impacted by the pandemic, the responses of rural communities, and what this means for our understanding of rural immigration moving forward.
The authors outline how the pandemic has revealed the need to better understand the roles of newcomers and migrants in rural areas and their implications for rural economies and communities. Immigrants, refugees, and migrant workers in these places fill different kinds of jobs and have access to different levels of services than their urban counterparts, and therefore are affected by COVID-19 in unique ways.
The paper focuses on:
Key recommendations:
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Supporting-Newcomers-and-Migrants-in-Rural-Canada-During-and-After-COVID-19-2020.pdf" title="Supporting Newcomers and Migrants in Rural Canada During and After COVID-19 (2020)"]
Abstract
In this paper the authors use social psychological and sociological theories to explore the anticipated effects on xenophobia and anti-immigrant attitudes worldwide. They discuss the implications for the spread of xenophobic and anti-immigration attitudes, and provide some recommendations for future research in this area.
Based on their analysis, they discuss recommendations for further research required during the ups and downs of the pandemic, as well as during recovery. They also discuss the need for research to address how to best counteract this expected surge in xenophobia and anti-immigrant attitudes. As the pandemic persists, it will be important to systematically examine its effects on xenophobia and anti-immigrant attitudes, and to develop and implement strategies that keep these negative attitudes at bay.
The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nations and individuals has almost certainly led to increased feelings of threat and competition, heightened uncertainty, lack of control, and a rise in authoritarianism.
Recommendations for Future Research
[pdf-embedder url="https://km4s.ca/wp-content/uploads/Xenophobia-and-anti-immigrant-attitudes-in-the-time-fo-COVID-19-2021.pdf" title="Xenophobia and anti-immigrant attitudes in the time fo COVID-19 (2021)"]
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