Background

Employment is both an essential need and an incredible challenge for newcomer youth starting their lives in Canada. While newcomer youth possess many strengths and skills for employment, research shows that they also have a lower employment rate than youth born in Canada and earn less despite high levels of education.  

With funding from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program (YESS), Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC), JVS Toronto (JVS) and WoodGreen Community Services (WoodGreen) co-led a research project to better understand the needs of newcomer youth and the unique skills and experience they bring to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) workforce, as well as the barriers they encounter.

The partners spoke to thousands of youth to better understand their employment journey, as well as hundreds of employers, educators and other stakeholders. Blueprint helped facilitate sessions with newcomer youth from across the GTA to better understand the unique challenges and opportunities they face in the labour market and to co-design recommendations for what can be done to ensure all newcomer youth are able to realize their full potential

The Challenge

In the last phase of this research initiative, Blueprint was asked to carry out a series of workshops with newcomer youth and service providers to validate research findings and generate recommendations to strengthen employment interventions for newcomer youth in the GTA.

We hosted three workshops, with a total of 51 youth participants from all over the GTA and 11 service providers across seven different organizations. Each of these workshops focused on recommendations connected to a specific part of the employment journey:

• Pre-employment journey: interventions that help newcomer youth prepare for employment
• Job search and entry: interventions that help newcomer youth secure employment

• Retention & career advancement: interventions that help newcomer youth advance in their careers

Read our full report to learn more or view the report summary here.  

What we Learned

Taken together, the research points to a lack of programs and services for newcomer youth that span their employment journeys and recognize their diverse experiences and needs. In our workshops with newcomer youth, we learned what skills have helped them succeed in the workforce as well as common barriers or training needed.  

Skills newcomer youth bring to the workplace:

• Communication
• Adaptability
• Resilience
• Strong work ethic

Challenges & Barriers:

• Managing cultural differences  
• Unsupportive managers and workplaces
• Unfair and exploitative practices  
• Lack of high-quality retention and career advancement services

Below are direct quotes from participants in the workshop.

Read TRIEC’s consolidated report which highlights the data and insights gathered by all the project partners, and offers actionable recommendations to foster better employment outcomes for newcomer youth in the GTA: https://triec.ca/research-and-insights/yess/

Want to get the highlights? Read the report summary here.