Magnet
“Connecting New Immigrants to Employment”
2016 – 2017
This project aimed to provide increased opportunities for the inclusion and participation of new immigrants in working and participating in the community. The objectives of this project were:
- Increase the number of qualified job opportunities received by new immigrants;
- Increase the number of new immigrants gaining employment;
- Increase the number of immigrant-serving organizations, employment agencies, and service providers across Canada as partners in the Magnet network (i.e., equipping them with a tool to engage their members); and
- Increase the number of employers engaged in the recruiting and hiring of new immigrants.
With support from the Counselling Foundation, Magnet has achieved the following success with its newcomer programs over the lifecycle of this project period of April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2017:
- 3,769 immigrant jobseekers signed-up with Magnet between April 1st, 2015 and March 31st, 2017 compared to 335 newcomers who signed up between April 1st, 2014 and March 31st, 2015. This is an increase of 1,025%.
- 70,619 targeted opportunities that matched newcomers’ skills were received by newcomers between April 1st, 2015 and March 31st, 2017 compared to 546 job opportunities between April 1st, 2014 and March 31st, 2015.
- 70 organizations (58 on-boarded and 12 to be on-boarded) serving newcomers became Magnet partners between April 1st, 2015 and March 31st, 2017 compared to 9 newcomers serving organizations who became partners prior to March 2015. This is an increase of 678%.
A key insight from this work:
Over the course of this project, Magnet also learned that collaboration and participating in multi-stakeholder community initiatives contributed greatly to its promotion among stakeholders. The engagement and relationship building work that was undertaken, made it possible for Magnet to leverage and amplify our impact through collaborative initiatives. The Syrian refugee crisis is an important example. Magnet’s participation at the Syrian Jobs Agenda Roundtable helped engage over 50 stakeholders, which included immigrant serving organizations, businesses and unions. It resulted in many collaborative initiatives.
About Magnet
Magnet is a not-for-profit social initiative, co-founded in partnership with Ryerson University and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC). It is a collaborative hub of post-secondary institutions, not-forprofits, government, labour, and industry partners working together to one common platform, towards one common goal: to address unemployment and under-employment of Canadians.