Talking Diverse City

LEEN AL-HABASH, GUELPH-WELLINGTON LOCAL IMMIGRATION PARTNERSHIP

We sat down with Leen Al-Habash from Guelph-Wellington Local Immigration Partnership (GWLIP) to talk diversity, discrimination and newcomer business women.

Please give our readers a brief overview of how the GWLIP can support employers and the Guelph business community.

GWLIP works with communities and agencies for systemic change and solutions to immigrant issues throughout Guelph/Wellington. In terms of employers and the business community, GWLIP supports businesses in attracting immigrants and recognizing their contributions to the integration of immigrants in the workplace. This support comes through providing data and information about newcomers, the added value that newcomers and immigrants bring to the workplace. Additionally, GWLIP periodically holds webinars and info sessions in issues related to diversity in the workplace, recruitment of immigrants and international students, and many other topics.

Generally speaking, women are underrepresented in leadership positions in business. Do you know if there are similar trends amongst newcomer/immigrant communities? Indeed, under-representation of women in leadership positions is more prevalent among newcomers and immigrants. The intersectionality of being an immigrant and a women exacerbate the situation. Various research studies and Statistics Canada reports found that immigrant women are less represented than Canadian-born women in executive and leadership positions, who in turn are less represented than men. In the workforce, immigrant women counted for one in four women. However, only one in seven women in leadership positions are immigrants. Additionally, the pay gap for immigrant women in leadership positions is even larger than Canadian- born women. When examining employment income, Canadian-born men ranked first, followed by immigrant men, Canadian-born women came third, leaving the immigrant women with the largest pay gap for leadership and executive positions.

What role, if any, have you seen newcomer/ immigrant women play in business? What is their competitive advantage? Do you have any examples of diverse women in leadership positions?

Immigrants are more likely to have entrepreneurial traits. They chose to uproot themselves and start a new life in a new country. According to Statistics Canada, immigrants are 40% more likely than Canadian-born individuals to either start a business or be self-employed. More than third of business owners with paid staff are immigrants. That means immigrants play an important role in creating local jobs.

Looking into women in particular, immigrant women tend to have a higher level of education than Canadian-born women and often in fields that are considered less common among women (for instance the STEM field). This should help address labour gaps in the market. However, unfortunately, many immigrant women remain underemployed, which is a huge missed opportunity.

Can you share any success stories of newcomer/ immigrant women who are entrepreneurs or business women?

We are lucky here in Guelph to have a number of immigrant women who managed to either start a successful business or to hold successful leadership roles.

For example, Melku Gebrekristos, owner of Laza Food & Beverage, built a very successful local business that created a number of local jobs.

Another example is Veronica Negrin, who started the Pinetree Pet Resort just on the outskirts of the city.

What do you see as the future trends/potential for this demographic?

As I mentioned earlier, immigrant women are highly educated. Immigrant women are more likely than Canadian-born women to have completed a university degree. However, unfortunately, that does not often translate into suitable employment. There is a major unrealized potential here, as immigrants are generally underemployed. Employers are experiencing labour shortages, so there is a chance that they can tap into these underutilized resources (i.e. immigrant women), to address this gap. The Federal government is increasing immigration targets for the coming few years, with a primary goal being to grow the labour force. We are seeing an interesting trend too, that more women are being admitted to Canada under the economic class, which means, more highly skilled women are joining the labour force.

Do you have any closing thoughts/anything you would like to share that we haven’t covered yet?

I want to emphasize that there are still many barriers that immigrant women face. Unfortunately, 7 out of 10 immigrants and visible minorities in Guelph still experience discrimination in different contexts. Applying for a job, and in the workplace are among the top contexts where discrimination happens. This means that work still needs to be done intentionally to ensure that workplaces and recruitment practices are more inclusive.

In a time when a shortage of labour is a major challenge for businesses, employers should take further consideration to tap into these underutilized resources. The hope is that one day we will finally see internationally trained engineers, doctors and nurses holding meaningful jobs in their field rather than wasting talent being underemployed. q