Category: Engage

A growing number of people have to leave the country where they were born because it’s not safe. The reason could be war, or it could be because political and other rights aren’t guaranteed. In too many places, you can be targeted because of your opinions, your pacifism, or who you love.

There are now more than 117 million people in this situation globally. That’s one in every 69 people in our world. Conflict in Sudan, Myanmar and Palestine are some of the places where the largest number of people have had to leave home.

At a recent roundtable in Toronto, Amy Pope, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), shared a few truths about those making difficult and often dangerous journeys to safety.

In addition to being safe, “people just want a job,” she said. When someone has crossed a border, alone or with their family, they want to live in a dignified way: Work. Contribute. Feel valued. Live in safety. Live decently.

This isn’t an option in most countries where people arrive after leaving home. People in displacement often don’t have work rights, or have just limited access to certain types of work, and typically face discrimination and exploitation like lower pay than their national counterparts.

The bottom line is that we need more opportunities open to people living displaced. We need more countries like Canada making job-backed immigration pathways (among others) a lot more accessible.

What does Canada get right?

Pope emphasized that Canada is an important leader in open, well-managed migration, influencing and encouraging other governments towards a rising standard. The pioneering Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP) is one example.

She’s right. The EMPP is a critical route for those in displacement to use their skills to get to a secure future. And it enables Canadian hiring teams to do something deeply impactful while gaining a talented new team member.

Imagine a world where all countries had similarly open economic routes aiming to include and attract those in displacement with skills to contribute, from kitchen attendants to mechanics to physicians. For starters, people would have more immigration options, not less, when they cross a border for safety, because they would still be seen as workers, students, and family members – and have humanitarian options available too. They wouldn’t see their skills atrophy. They could find a solution in months instead of years and years. 

What can Canada improve?

Canada can always do better. Below are a few important ways to continue building a globally-leading, inclusive economic stream.

Faster processing times: The success of a job-backed immigration program relies on the visa working for employers. Canada’s current processing timeline for the EMPP, six months, doesn’t work for all employers. Long timelines also add significant stress and other hardship on candidates and their families who are in insecure situations but who are often unable to make major changes or decisions while waiting for a visa approval. Some countries process work visas in mere weeks. Canada should explore a similarly fast standard across the economic stream. 

Mainstream flexibility: We continue recommending that Canada improve access to temporary work permits for applicants in displacement, so they can leverage the country’s fastest routes to work and secure livelihoods, such as Global Talent Stream work permits. Canada can start by extending the areas of flexibility that already exist under the EMPP (i.e. alternative ID in lieu of valid passports) to Canada’s other economic stream programs, permanent and temporary.

Refresh temporary pathways: “Temporary programs are a good thing, if they’re humane,” Pope said. Canada can make our temporary pathways work better for everyone, including displaced applicants, with two important changes: The addition of family accompaniment for all temporary pathways (the ability to bring family is currently restricted for entry-level workers, or those with occupations at TEER 4-5); and greater availability of permanent pathways for those with jobs and experience in all skill levels from TEER 0-5. In other words, anyone invited to work in this country should be able to bring their family, and have a pathway to permanence if they wish to pursue it. 

Check out other recent recommendations.

The power of skills-based pathways

By creating the best blueprint for an open, inclusive economic stream, Canada can do powerful things for the women, men and kids who access these opportunities, but also for those who learn about the possibility.

We know there’s a skills lift effect when people in displacement know that their human capital, including their English or French skills, can be the pathway to leave a refugee situation. And, we know that people are less likely to take unsafe migration journeys, for example across the Mediterranean or the Darién Gap, if they know there’s another accessible option for them.

Canada has already built an incredible program in the EMPP that all hiring teams across the country should be using. It’s an awesome foundation towards an economic stream that fully recognizes and lifts up human potential in displacement – and towards that world where an increasing number of countries are watching and doing the same.

Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.

It took Aliu Yulah over a month to open the link that his friend sent him, but when he finally did, his life changed forever.

Originally from North-West Cameroon, Aliu fled home due to political unrest and violence. He had been targeted for speaking out against the government and was forced to quickly flee to Nigeria after he was identified, in order to protect his family. The experience was extremely emotional and difficult, forcing him to say goodbye to his family and leave without being able to pack much more than a couple of pieces of clothing. Painfully, Aliu was also forced to abandon the small business he had built over many years of hard work, installing fire prevention equipment and alarm systems.

In Nigeria, Aliu settled into Lagos and began looking for work as a refugee. He had no friends or family in Lagos but was able to connect with fellow refugees to support one another. For three years, he found jobs with his training from Cameroon in electrical systems and fire alarm installation. But the work wasn’t reliable or challenging enough for his advanced skill-set and education, and the cost of living in Lagos was prohibitively expensive.

That’s when Aliu’s friend recommended looking at TalentLift: the link that took him over a month to open. “My friend knew I had a hard time starting over in Nigeria, but he said I should look into more options for working abroad, and I should talk with the people at TalentLift,” Aliu says.

When he first logged into the TalentLift platform, Aliu says he was surprised by how many employers in Canada were looking for people with his fire alarm systems skillset. The shortage of skilled tradespeople in Canada has attracted employers to look outside the country for their labour needs, specifically for industry-specific skills – Aliu fit the exact needs the fire prevention and safety industry was needing. Ultimately, he connected with Everguard, a pan-Canadian fire and life safety sales and service company in 2023.

Everguard’s Kamloops team was looking for a technician at just the same time Aliu was looking to start anew. Connecting in interviews, Aliu says he was drawn to the company’s culture. Googling the city helped to seal his interest. “I love taking long walks in nature after a long day’s work – something that’s hard to do in Lagos. The mountain and forest areas of Kamloops look beautiful,” he says.

After leaving behind his business in Cameroon, he’s looking forward to building his career again in Canada. “It will be a learning process for me, but I will also be contributing what I’ve learned in the past years,” he says, referencing the broad types of work he did in Nigeria while stringing together odd jobs.

Aliu is particularly grateful he decided to finally look into TalentLift that day: “They really give people hope, a spectrum of light. They set you up for success.”

TalentLift is a step in a journey opened by the Everguard team. Facing a shortage of available trained and skilled fire protection technicians in Canada, they had the vision to find a new team member in Aliu. Someone with talent, resilience, and the energy to build himself a new community – and hike around it too. 

Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.

When Lucie arrived at Toronto’s Pearson Airport on a cold day in February 2024, she felt as though a weight had been lifted off of her. Passing through customs, immigration and baggage, she says she felt close to crying: the process was so straightforward, and the fact that she was treated with respect by the immigration authorities was so unfamiliar to her.

After living most of her life in South Africa as a refugee from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lucie had become used to facing constant hurdles and challenges to secure papers, employment and even a bank account and credit card. “In South Africa, jobs are pretty much only available for citizens, and my refugee papers were an obstacle – employers there are not comfortable hiring or promoting someone from another country.”

Her journey to Canada serves as stark contrast from her experience there. After losing her customer service job in South Africa during the pandemic, and struggling to find full-time, adequately compensated work, she finally began to explore the idea of moving to a country where she would be embraced.

For years, she says, she’d dreamt of Toronto, hearing about the vibrancy of the city and the openness of Canada. Looking through the Government of Canada’s website, she saw the link to TalentLift and decided to build out a profile for herself, without knowing whether or not it would lead to any opportunities.

But Lucie’s experience in digital marketing and customer service, in addition to her fluency in French and English, immediately intrigued a hiring manager at Round13 Capital. The investment firm, which is headquartered in Toronto and focuses on growing the Canadian technology ecosystem, had identified TalentLift as a partner to build out their team and meet their human resources needs.

After liaising with TalentLift, Round13 was able to offer Lucie a role as a Social Media Coordinator and Office Administrator in the fall of 2023. Despite her excitement, after nearly a lifetime of dealing with the obstacles of being a refugee in South Africa, she wasn’t able to breathe easy until arriving in Toronto. “I just feel like Canada knows how to deal with refugees, and everyone was so friendly, even on the subway when I had questions.”

Since February, Lucie says Toronto has been exactly what she was searching for. She says her colleagues at Round13 have been incredibly supportive of her journey, and are encouraging her to expand her knowledge of finance and venture capital so she can take on more responsibilities for the firm. Outside of her work, she’s found community through church and by enrolling in a gym, and is looking forward to discovering Toronto’s summer festivals.

One of her coworkers at Round13 even helped her find housing, with roommates she says have become fast friends. “I could not have found better people for my new life, from friends to colleagues to housemates,” she says. “Right from my first day in Canada I learned people here are kind and want to help.”

Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.

Kadija always knew she wanted to be a nurse, ever since she was a young girl in Somalia taking care of her grandmother, but she never knew her dream could take her across the ocean.

“We didn’t have family members with medical education, so becoming a nurse was a big aspiration for me,” she says, made even more complicated by the violence of the civil war in Somalia.

In 2008, Kadija and her aunt left their home and claimed refugee status in Ethiopia. Despite the difficult conditions in the camp, Kadija continued to work hard at her dream, excelling at school and earning a scholarship to university to study nursing. Things were not easy – Kadija notes that the university had electricity 24 hours a day, which was a luxury compared to the rest of the camp where she lived.

Despite the difficulties, Kadija stood out among her peers for her passion and hard work. “The professors knew I was a refugee, and they supported and encouraged me even more,” she says. She thrived in her nursing program, ultimately receiving top grades in pediatrics and obstetrics. But her lifelong passion, for providing dignified and expert care for elderly patients, is what made her profile attractive to recruiters in Newfoundland and Labrador.

After being in contact with TalentLift Canada, and facilitated by a UNHCR staff member, Kadija was shortly thereafter connected to the Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services. The province, which has a labour shortage, is in need of talented and passionate medical staff like Kadija to care for their aging population. The partnership between TalentLift and the provincial health authority has been a natural fit – matching educated and skilled people in refugee situations with the hospitals and care homes in the province, and has so far resulted in 46 matches, including Kadija.

Kadija will move to Canada in the coming months, and will begin work as a Personal Care Attendant at a care home in Mount Pearl, a community outside St. John’s. She is also planning on picking up her studies again, to further her medical skillset and knowledge, particularly in the area of gynaecology and women’s health. While she is nervous about leaving her aunt, she says she’s most looking forward to getting to work, to showing her new patients the high level of care she’s passionate about and has developed a knack for over the years. “I like taking patients for walks and helping with their medication and nutrition – it’s their time to receive the love and care our mothers gave us,” she says.

While her working life in Mount Pearl will be a continuation of the high quality of nursing she’s been doing for years, there’s one significant and new experience she’s looking forward to: “I’ve never been to the ocean. I can’t wait to see it.”

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

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Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.

It’s tough to look at the picture of global displacement and find optimism. But Rema Jamous Imseis, the UNHCR Canada Representative, encourages us to see it in our hiring power.

At the end of 2022, there were more than 108 million people forcibly displaced in different parts of the world. This figure has likely grown because of conflicts and natural disasters, many linked to climate change. In just the last year, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) responded to 35 new emergencies. “We’re going to continue seeing people moving to seek safety,” Rema said. Resources to respond, whether to improve conditions or support immigration solutions, are not keeping pace. In one stark example, less than 1% of those in need of humanitarian resettlement are able to access this solution each year.

While emergencies unfold, seeking safety across a border is becoming harder. New border restrictions and rules in many countries make it more difficult for people to cross a border, and easier to force people back somewhere dangerous when they have made it through.

Rema joined a recent meeting of the Tech Talent Welcome Council to share these key facts on global displacement, and insights on what individuals here in Canada can do about it. Members of the Tech Talent Welcome Council are a community of peers hiring tech talent from within refugee populations. They include folks from Thinkific, ApplyBoard, Scotiabank, TalentLift (as an employer), and beyond. 

Available to us all is Canada’s Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP), a unique Canadian visa program that unlocks our hiring power as a response to global displacement. The EMPP lets Canadian employers offer a job and relocation opportunity to someone talented who’s in a refugee situation. Whether we’re motivated by the overall scale of need, or by ties to a community, like those from Afghanistan, Palestine, or Sudan, we have the ability to respond.

Our hiring power opens up a pathway that wouldn’t be there otherwise, Rema said. Hiring teams can make a significant impact in individual lives, and collectively, by pioneering a skills-based solution that can scale across Canada – and globally, as other countries seek to replicate what works for their peers.

“Anything we can do to offer additional pathways is going to have an impact.”

Key facts about the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP)

The EMPP is an exciting opportunity, and has many competitive advantages compared to other visa pathways. In brief, the EMPP:

• Is open to any job position (at any skill level), in any location outside Quebec
• Is a simple, one-stage visa application to the federal government
• Does not require a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) or other job-posting period
• Takes 6 months to process

Employers can work with a partner like TalentLift, which partners with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and NGOs in different parts of the world, to find talented candidates. See our latest talent snapshot for a glimpse of the immense talent within refugee populations. 

Candidates must be living in refugee or displaced circumstances outside Canada and outside their home country.

A Canadian innovation

The EMPP is the first of its kind globally, and has already helped to grow similar pilots in Australia, the United Kingdom, and a handful of countries in Europe. This means the community of hiring employers is now growing in Canada and globally.

This is an innovation to take pride in, and to scale.

“We’re very sheltered from the realities that a lot of people face. It’s essential to this country to continue welcoming people,” Rema said. She asked, “what kind of world do you hope for? What kind of workplace do you want to foster?”

By hiring displaced talent, we’ll be building that more inclusive, equitable world and workplace, where opportunity is available to talent living anywhere. And it’s absolutely “win-win.” It’s pragmatic. “You get something incredibly powerful and rewarding.”

What can every hiring manager in Canada do next?

If you haven’t yet, reach out to TalentLift to get started.

You can also set a hiring target. A target helps get this initiative off the ground, past the realm of ideas, until it’s a proven part of your team’s talent pipeline.

It’s rare to have the power to make such an impact, through something so regular and ongoing like hiring. That’s cause for optimism. 

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

Every day in Canada, Josh Mesa says, is like “heaven.”

After years of coping with uncertainty and struggling to make ends meet for his family as a refugee and labourer in Trinidad and Tobago, Josh, a successful TalentLift candidate now working for Area52 in New Brunswick, says he can’t stop counting his blessings.

Originally from Cuba, Josh and his wife Amy worked for many years as accountants before deciding that the economic crisis in Cuba would never allow their family to thrive, let alone be conducive to a minimum standard of living.

They made the decision to flee Cuba in 2018 and became refugees in Trinidad and Tobago, where they could not find work other than casual labour, stocking shelves, and picking fruit. It took Josh and Amy two years to save enough wages to purchase a laptop, after which he promptly began enrolling in programming and coding courses so that he could apply for better work and possibly immigrate. “I wanted a better life for my family, and especially my daughter,” he says.

However, even with their hard work in Trinidad and Tobago and Josh’s in-demand technology skills, finding a pathway to a better life proved incredibly difficult. The couple tried for many years to seek out different forms of migration. On December 2, 2021, after grueling years of working casual, physical jobs without formal refugee status, they felt they had run out of options and booked plane tickets to Central America, with the intention of walking to the US or Canada and claiming asylum.

Fortunately, fate intervened. The very next day, on December 3 (a date Josh says he’ll never forget), the Canadian government announced another phase of an economic mobility pathway program that Josh and Amy qualified for, despite their lack of official status. In the months after, Josh connected with Area52, an innovative New Brunswick-based company that helps seafood processing companies automate their workflow. After conducting interviews, they were impressed with Josh’s technical and programming expertise, and his bright, warm personality, but unclear on how to facilitate a move to Canada.

After connecting with TalentLift staff, who provided guidance and support on the paperwork, Area52 felt confident enough in the sponsorship process to offer Josh employment and make his move to Canada happen, along with his wife and daughter.

Three years after they first found out Canada could be an option for them, the family is now thriving. At first, Josh was concerned his daughter, who is in grade seven, would struggle to fit in because of her lack of English. But now he says, almost a year after their move, she chats fluently with her new friends and is learning guitar on an instrument given by one of Josh’s coworkers as a ‘Welcome to Canada’ gift. Amy began to study and became licensed in financial planning. She’s working with an insurance company while studying for further qualifications in the field.

When asked to reflect on how much their life has turned around in the past ten months, after years of struggle in Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago, Josh says it’s difficult to express the entirety of his emotions. “TalentLift was a blessing for us; they reached us at the moment when we most needed it.”

He hopes more Canadian employers will connect with TalentLift to learn how they can take on more employees from refugee situations. “When TalentLift takes on a candidate, they will do anything for them. The team is so humble, kind and confident. I feel like they’re family, and they treat us likewise.”

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

On International Women’s Day, we’re spotlighting the talent, courage and strength of three remarkable women within our TalentLift community: Amy, Enas and Samar. All three left refugee situations after they or their partner received a job opportunity and pursued a skilled visa to Canada under the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot.

We’re grateful to them for sharing a glimpse of their experiences here.

“Never give up, there is a great future waiting for those who are ready to work for it.” – Amy

Amy recently completed her studies as an independent broker and views her career as an opportunity to empower others, by helping them to better understand their financial situations. Her journey through displacement and relocation to Canada involved many challenges and took a lot of perseverance. Amy is originally from Cuba and was living displaced in Trinidad and Tobago before relocating to Canada with her family. “But the point is not giving up,” she advises. Amy attributes her strength to her faith and family. They’ve helped her follow her own aspirations; she dreams of making a positive impact in her new career and community by assisting others find economic security. She encourages others to think of the wealth of opportunity in Canada and the possibility of gaining, with hard work, and also giving back. “Canada is a country with a lot of opportunities, so take advantage of it, help build up this society to be much better than what it already is.”

“On a day like today, where some women enjoy great rights while others suffer, for all the women and especially survivors, resistance and persistence are the only hope.” – Enas

Enas said she dreamed about her current life and all that she has now when she was little. She added, “I’m grateful for all the experiences that have brought me here. It’s been a journey with many stops, and I believe this isn’t my final destination.” Enas is from Syria and was living in Lebanon in a refugee situation when she interviewed with a Canadian employer and obtained a job offer in British Columbia.  Enas is a social work professional and has experienced great advances and growth in her career. She thinks she has left a positive impact in the communities where she has served too, including here in Canada. Not everything has been easy for her of course. Balancing the stress and emotions that come with being a newcomer alongside work and other demands is challenging. However, “the significant changes in my life have fueled my perseverance.” Next, Enas hopes to pursue drama therapy in continuing education, to build her career in a direction where she can keep working closely with people while nurturing her artistic side. She is creative, empathetic and warm. It’s easy to see how she’ll continue lifting up those around her.

“Don’t despair. We need patience. And to walk step by step. Good work will be seen by everyone.” – Samar

Samar, meanwhile, has ventured into entrepreneurship with her crochet business, alongside her dedication to teaching Arabic. Struggling with English proficiency, she enrolled in Sheridan College to enhance her language, recognizing its crucial role in navigating life in Canada. Despite this challenge, Samar didn’t let it deter her; instead, she seized opportunities by starting her own crochet business and teaching Arabic language classes via Zoom.

Samar is Palestinian has lived in Syria and then Lebanon in a refugee situation. There were significant challenges across her family’s journey. Here in Canada, maybe the hardest one is language. But that’s part of starting somewhere new, she knows.  Samar draws inspiration and support from her husband, and emphasizes the importance of staying positive and securing a stable income to provide a good life for their children. All of this takes hard work, but she’s sure hard work gets recognized. “Always, develop yourselves,” she encourages others. This beautiful philosophy is alive in her dream to open a private school for children, to help them develop and thrive too.

These are some incredible women. And there are many other talented folks like them, across all skill sets, in need of opportunity. Start hiring with us and meet them.

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

With the support of the Scotiabank ScotiaRISE initiative, TalentLift has built a talent platform for displaced job seekers to self-register, develop job-readiness, and connect to transformative job and relocation opportunities to Canada. Learn more.

At TalentLift, our mission is about opening doors to skilled employment opportunities for people living as refugees, and providing a holistic support system that empowers displaced talents throughout their journeys to thrive in their new environments. We believe that leveraging the right tools is key to our mission’s success. That’s where Thinkific comes into play.

Thinkific is an all-in-one online course platform that lets individuals and organizations create and deliver courses on their branded websites. TalentLift has adopted this innovative software to create courses for candidates, and further our mission in several impactful ways:

• Job market readiness: Preparation to put your best foot forward to employers is about equipping candidates with the cultural fluency and professional norms expected within the Canadian workforce. Our job market readiness course on the Thinkific platform focuses on topics like employment expectations, resume writing, interview techniques, workplace communication and culture, and networking. Supported by these modules, our candidates can step into the Canadian job market, interviews, and eventually the workplace with confidence, ready to contribute and thrive.
• Immigration process: For those who have successfully secured a job offer, the journey is just beginning. It’s crucial for our candidates to be empowered to navigate the immigration process alongside us. This is important for a swift visa submission and to ensure a smooth transition to life in Canada. One of our Thinkific courses is dedicated to onboarding candidates to the immigration legal framework that TalentLift follows, providing a roadmap through the visa process (program steps, document requirements, timelines, and available support), as well as the rights and responsibilities that form the backbone of their new careers and lives in Canada.

As we mark two months since embarking on this collaboration with Thinkific, we’re already seeing the empowering impact of this user-friendly platform for our candidates. 

Thinkific supports our mission in more than one inspiring way. Nasser Alkhellow is a Software Engineer on the Thinkific team who is also a TalentLift alumni supported to relocate from a refugee situation in Türkiye for work in his new home in Vancouver. This unique connection underscores how pioneering leaders like Thinkific innovate across all elements of their business, from software to impactful hiring. And, attracting superstars like Nasser helps to power product excellence.

Greg Smith, the CEO of Thinkific, and his talented team have been instrumental in this new chapter of supporting TalentLift offers to candidates. We are grateful for Thinkific’s leadership and partnership in unlocking many more journeys ahead. 

We are excited to continue to expand the scope and reach of our training programs to further advance our mission. Our focus will be on creating learning journeys for candidates that are accessible, cost-free, and centred on practical guidance.

We envision empowering many more people to leverage their skills – and this learning – to relocate alongside their families from displacement to new careers and homes in Canada.

Hala Alkhellow is a Data Engineer with TalentLift who developed an interest in technical programming despite her background in Communication Engineering from Aleppo University. Driven to deepen her skills, Hala embarked on a journey of self-study, immersing herself in various programming languages and frameworks. Through online resources and mentorship from experienced software engineers, she honed her front-end development, back-end development, and data engineering expertise. Hala firmly believes that continuous learning is the key to keeping up with the ever-evolving technology field.

Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.