DI’s Director of Research, Dr. Guang Ying Mo, recently participated in an IWD event organized by Bridging Divides/Global Migration Institute along with Anju Virmani, former Chief Information Officer of Cargojet Inc., Kamilah Reid-Burrell, Director of Inclusion, BMO, Rania Younes, Senior Manager of Employer Networks and National Engagement, IEC-BC and Sahra Togone, Manager, BuildHER Future.
The panel spoke broadly about the challenges and contributions of immigrant women in the workplace in an age of disruption. Dr. Mo focused on labour market information showing that although they are better educated, immigrant women had an unemployment rate almost double that of women born in Canada (7.6% vs 4.1%). Those with a university degree see the largest gap of 4.7 percentage points. Immigrant women were also more likely to work in part-time employment (15.8%) compared to Canadian born women (14.9%). She also emphasized however that, according to a recent survey with the Environics Institute and Future Skills Centre, immigrant women (46.2%) and men (48.2%) are more likely to have used AI to help with tasks at work than the overall sample (36.7%).
First generation immigrant women are more likely to worry about near-term job automation (50.7%) compared to 44.6% of first generation immigrant men and 41.6% of the overall sample. In addition to sharing the results of her research, Dr. Mo also shared her own personal experience and the need for highly skilled immigrant women to also develop their social capital building networks with professional groups, their community and voluntary or extra curricular activities.
