DANILO BARBA — The Dialog (George Brown College)

Githin Mathew said Canadian work experience has been the biggest barrier for him finding a job.

TORONTO (CUP) — Canada was the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy in 1971. But more than 40 years later, international students and immigrants still turn to unpaid work such as volunteering, internships or low-skilled ‘survival jobs’ because they don’t meet the requirements for Canadian experience.

“Ontario attracts highly-skilled immigrants from all over the world,” said the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s chief commissioner Barbara Hall. “But if they have to meet a requirement for Canadian experience, they can’t get a job without Canadian experience and they can’t get experience without a job. In most cases, that is discrimination under Ontario’s Human Rights Code.”

After consulting with newcomers to Canada in the last 10 years, the OHRC found that many of them end up in jobs that do not correspond to their education, skills or experience. OHRC launched a new policy on July 15, stating that employers need to ask about a job applicant’s previous work. However, which country they got their experience in should not matter.

Githin Mathew, a postgraduate student in international business management at George Brown College, has been facing this situation since he arrived from India in January.

“The biggest barrier I have faced is companies’ requirement for Canadian experience,” Mathew said. “We as students hope to get experience by working with a Canadian company, and the companies intend to employ students only if they have Canadian experience.”

Harmeet Singh Kohli, a professor at the GBC Centre for Business, said “if the experience acquired abroad is relevant to [the] domestic, political, economic and cultural environment, then there is no reason for the employer not to take it into account; but that it is still an employer’s decision.”

With the new policy, employers are advised to be more specific with their ads and job postings than just requiring Canadian experience. Examples include education, independent study, on-the-job training and volunteering. Meanwhile, there are positions where international experience on the resume can be looked upon favorably.

“It seems like discrimination to me,” said Geoff David Barr Watson, owner of creative agency The New Beat. “My line of work comprises international standard codes, procedures and software, so I would consider hiring skilled professionals independently of their country of origin in a selection.

“My opinion is that foreigners may actually aggregate fresh knowledge to the company, and I believe that a new policy can definitely address the Canadian experience issue,” he said.

Bob Eichvald, manager of the career services centre, said that a lack of work experience can be a barrier for students when they are job searching.

“We encourage both domestic and international students to acquire work experience while completing their study programs,” said Eichvald.