This was in yesterdays Globe and Mail. November 29th, 2006 in the CAREERS section.

BV

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Immigrant job ghetto can turn into a Velcro rut
by SUSAN PINKER

Dear Susan,
I am an engineer from China. Since I arrived in Canada two years ago, I have not been able to find a job in my field but have been working as a foreman in an electronics business owned by a Chinese family and staffed by mostly Asian workers. I know that as an immigrant I may never be able to get a job in my profession, but want to know if working in my own community is a good plan. I am in my thirties, I can communicate in English and would like to move up.

-- Mechanical not Electrical



Dear Mechanical,

Many immigrants get their start in occupational ghettos. My grandparents sewed ties "by the piece" (garments were a Jewish thing), while my Italian neighbours cut grass and laid bricks, and my Greek and South Korean students helped out in their parents' restaurants and dry cleaners after class. Ethnic enclaves are a way to get a toehold in a new place if immigrants don't speak the language fluently, have few local contacts and discover when they arrive that a foreign degree is not fully recognized.

Their children easily break through these barriers -- through assimilation and education -- but the question is whether you should try it right now.

"The No. 1 barrier is Canadian work experience," says Naomi Alboim, a fellow at the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University. "People find it difficult to apply their skills, even in unregulated professions, because employers are not prepared to take a chance on someone." She says research shows that, once in Canada, it is what you do, not where you do it that counts. So, working in an ethnic enclave matters less than getting job experience relevant to your occupation. In your case, that means deciding whether management is where you're headed.

If so, it's easier to rise among your own as there's less discrimination and there are shorter ladders to the top, says Ryan A. Smith, an associate professor of public affairs at Baruch College at the City University of New York. Using census data and surveys to look at white, black, Asian and Hispanic managers working in mainstream businesses, Prof. Smith and co-author James Elliott discovered that managers can get trapped on a "sticky floor." That happens when they are matched with employees of their own background at the entry level of a big organization. They're hired, in part, to reduce cultural friction between the ranks. Then, the managers get stuck there if the level over their heads is more ethnically diverse.

"Our study provided strong evidence that many minorities never get close enough to the glass ceiling to butt up against it because they are stuck at the bottom with no decision-making authority, or restricted to supervising other minorities," Prof. Smith said.

This wouldn't happen in a business that is ethnically homogeneous and, of course, shouldn't happen anywhere at all if a meritocracy prevails. Combined with multiculturalism, it's supposed to open doors for you. But there's a basic disconnect in the system. While immigration is a federal-provincial jurisdiction, education and professional licensing are provincial. So, bridging programs that would allow foreign-trained doctors, dentists, pharmacists and engineers to work in their professions exist in some provinces but not others.

If working in engineering is not that important to you, by all means stay where you are to get managerial experience. But there's one caveat: Familiarity diminishes the isolation of the immigrant experience but, as per the cliché, it also breeds contempt. Recent immigrants who don't know local labour standards and who may feel beholden to the familiar face who gave them a break are easily exploited.

"My mother doubled her hourly wage when the son of someone from her hometown [in Italy] gave her a job," said a psychiatrist friend (who broke through the barrier). "But at the plant, he was unbelievably bad," he added, recalling how this slave-driving manager shocked his compatriots with his lack of compassion. The employees expected more loyalty from one of their own. "My family has this mythology that this wouldn't happen in other ethnic groups."

I'm skeptical: The grass is always greener outside the occupational ghetto.

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If the ‘Wrong’ is happening again and again with everyone, does not make it ‘Right’.

The Canadian employer (not all) does not want to take chance with new immigrants. But of course want to take maximum out of them, while paying minimum; exploit them in the name of providing Canadian experience and enjoy all the good programs run by government for newcomers. Realty is that the immigration is a government run program and has no control what so ever on job market; which is primarily held by private hands in Canada.

The solution is to take the hirers, mainly private companies, in confidence while formulating immigration policies. Factual job market needs are assessed and immigration in different skills distributed accordingly. If in 2007, say 400 persons can be absorbed in a particular field, allowing 4000 means 3600 will be working outside their field.

Employers have to understand, if they are giving chance to a newcomer to learn and get the so called ‘Canadian Experience’; businesses are also getting comparatively cheaper staff. They may have to lower their expectations, at least for the initial period. If an engineer is working at pizza shop or a computer genius- back home- is working as general laborer; every one is at loss.