Immigrants face ‘thick glass ceiling’
Newcomers trying to advance in workplace confronted by many barriers, report says
Immigrants may have made progress reaching the first rung on their career ladder in Canada, but they are getting nowhere near the C-suites, a new report says.
Among the leading Greater Toronto Area employers across the public, private and non-profit sectors, only 6 per cent of executives — those at the level of vice-president or above — are immigrants, according to the study, “Building a Corporate Ladder for All,” to be released Thursday by the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council.
The public and non-profit sectors are faring slightly better with 6.6 per cent of their executives being immigrants, but just 5 per cent of corporate executives overall in the GTA are newcomers, says the study. Executives were not surveyed directly. Instead, the survey examined third-party public sources, such as LinkedIn, to determine immigrant representation.
Being a visible minority immigrant woman is a triple whammy as they only make up one in 100 corporate executives in the region, the report found, though women overall accounted for 36 per cent of the executive positions.
“Immigrants often have to begin their Canadian careers at more junior, even entry levels. This mid- or late-career ‘restart’ makes it unlikely that they will be able to climb up to the top of the career ladder. Taking a lower level position has the potential to affect an immigrant’s entire career in Canada,” says the report, referring to the limited upward mobility faced by newcomers as the “sticky floor” phenomenon.
“Employer reluctance to hire immi
grant talent for managementlevel positions in particular, plays a significant role in limiting advancement … Cultural differences in management and leadership styles can play a role in this. There are certain cultural expectations in Canada around how a leader should behave,” the report said.
Report author and researcher Yilmaz Ergun Dinc analyzed the profiles of 659 executives from 69 employers through sampling from the 2019 GTA Top Employers listing by Mediacorp Canada. Only those with headquarters and executive positions in Canada were counted. Data was culled through company websites, annual reports, investor reports, LinkedIn and Bloomberg profiles, as well as other publicly available sources.
Although the findings are not definitive, the report offers a snapshot of immigrant representation in executive roles in the region.
“Immigrant” executives are defined as those who obtained their bachelor’s degree abroad, given only 2.1 per cent of Canadians studied overseas, making this a good indicator of an individual being an immigrant.
Those executives with an undergraduate degree from the United States and the United Kingdom were excluded because professionals from the two countries don’t tend to face the same barriers as others from non-English speaking countries. The unemployment gap between newcomers and their Canadian peers has been shrinking over the past two decades. In the GTA, where newcomers make up 50 per cent of the population, almost half of immigrant men and two-thirds of immigrant women with a university degree were in jobs that required lower levels of education in 2016, compared to one-third of their male and female Canadian-born counterparts.
“As immigrants age, and hypothetically reach more advanced stages in their careers, their incomes should align more closely with people born here,” says the report. “Yet, the salary income gap seems to be growing with age.”
In the GTA, economic immigrants between the ages of 35 to 44 on average earn about 25 per cent less than people born in Canada. However, by the time they are between the ages of 45 to 54, they earn almost 40 per cent less than their Canadianborn counterparts.
Dinc says community efforts have traditionally focused on helping immigrants get their feet in the door in the job market through job and language training, and not enough attention is paid to supporting them in career promotion. It doesn’t help that the economy is shifting toward precarious work and some organizations lack inclusive promotion processes.
“As more and more jobs are becoming temporary and contract-based and therefore without advancement opportunities, organizations are not investing in grooming these workers for leadership,” he notes, adding that many immigrants do not have senior executive mentors who can act as their champions when it comes to promotion.
To break the “thick glass ceiling” for immigrant professionals, the report recommends that employers establish leadership development and mentoring programs, inclusion training for managers and inclusive professional development strategies.
“We need to be applying our minds to the systematic barriers, especially for women and racialized people, that limit immigrants’ advancement once they do find work, and collaboratively implement the recommendations identified,” the study concludes.
“If our goal is to set Canada apart as a desirable destination for the world’s best and brightest in their fields, we need immigrant leaders that will help Canadian businesses, nonprofits and public institutions to innovate, grow and prosper.”