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September 7, 2010

The Edmonton Region Immigrant Employment Council (ERIEC), launched in March 2010, has already achieved results in integrating internationally trained new residents into the Edmonton region labour market.

In 2009, the organization’s career mentorship program accepted 10 internationally trained, job-ready professionals, paired with a Canadian mentor with a similar professional background.

As a direct result of the program, 50 per cent of the pilot group found jobs appropriate to their education and experience within three months of completing the program. The remainder of the pilot group now have stronger skills for competing in the greater Edmonton job market.

“These highly skilled individuals needed some help in learning how to conduct a successful job search in Canada and in getting to know the ropes of Canadian workplace culture. Clearly, the minimal time invested by the Canadian mentors is paying big dividends for our new, job-ready residents and for our region’s workforce,” said Doug Piquette, ERIEC executive director.

These matches focused on engineers. Of the five with appropriate full-time jobs, four are professional engineers and one is in financial services.

ERIEC anticipates the program can accommodate up to 50 more professionals new to Canada in 2010.

“One by one, ERIEC is strengthening our region’s business bottom line by getting global residents to work at levels appropriate to their qualifications,” Piquette added.

He said the program limits the number of individuals it accepts to ensure high quality matches that will give the new resident the best chance of finding appropriate full-time employment.

“We are continually asked to accept many more people into the program, but the rigor we bring to the process ensures an excellent quality of matches and information shared. We don’t want to sacrifice that quality that is clearly yielding results,” Piquette stressed.

ERIEC’s broader mandate focuses on the needs of regional employers so they can expand their workforces to include internationally trained new residents. Piquette says growing numbers of Canadian businesses recognize the benefits of employing globally trained and educated residents, but many employers need support accessing the available skills.

The industry-led, not-for-profit organization focuses on knowledge transfer, information coordination and dissemination, and workplace capacity building to connect employers with the talents they need. The organization also offers a useful forum for business, government and stakeholders to share and resolve employment issues relating to a multicultural workforce.