This major finding has emerged from a poll of 6,000 managers, professionals and executives working in Canadian corporations and professional service companies. Challenges faced by visible minorities in landing employment don’t end there, according to the survey conducted by Catalyst Canada and the Diversity Institute in Management and Technology at Ryerson University.

The study, on the heels of an earlier report from Statistics Canada which showed new immigrants with high credentials are falling behind economically, should be seen as “a wake-up call” for employers to better leverage the talents of their workforce, says Wendy Cukier, associate dean of Ryerson’s faculty of business.

Preliminary results of the survey clearly show lower levels of career satisfaction among visible minorities, in comparison with their white Caucasian fellow employees. Close to half of visible minority respondents said their employers failed to recognize their foreign education credentials as “on par” with those of employees from the non-minority population. 

Respondents whose credentials were not recognized as equal to those earned in Canada were least satisfied with their careers. Twenty-four percent of those individuals said they plan to explore opportunities outside of Canada in the next three years.

“When I called this study a wake-up call, I do believe we have to be honest and rigorous in our assessment of where things are” Cukier says. “What this suggests is that these issues around credentials persist through the career.  It also suggests to me that organizations have to be quite serious about how they look at systemic barriers and systemic discrimination.”

The survey also revealed that visible minority employees—whether born in Canada or not—have lower levels of career satisfaction. “That to me flags the possibility that there are deeper rooted issues that organizations have to grapple with,” Cukier says.

Canadians prefer to believe problems associated with discrimination were dealt with long ago, she adds. But the research produced by the survey suggests otherwise.

“Whether we’re talking about visible minorities or we’re talking about women or disabled or GLBT workers, certainly we have made progress,” Cukier acknowledges. “But we would be deceiving ourselves to think there isn’t still a lot more to be done.”

Initial results of the survey are part of a larger study being conducted by Catalyst and Ryerson titled Careers Advancement in Corporate Canada: A Focus on Visible Minorities. The major difference with this project is that survey responses come from managers, professionals and executives employed in the organization, as opposed to HR managers and other decision makers in the same organizations, says Deborah Gillis, Catalyst Canada’s executive director.      

“What’s interesting about our study is most of the research that’s been done in the past—the public dialogue and discussion—is really focused on those who are entering the labour force, the unemployed or under-employed who are trying to gain entry or get a foot in the door,” she says. “Our group is very different. These are managers, professionals and executives who have been working in Canada on average for 20 years.”

The survey demonstrates that the issue is not focused on entry or recruitment, but rather on career satisfaction and advancement opportunities within an organization, Gillis says.

“For Catalyst, just as we’ve seen with women over the years, getting in the door and getting into the organization does not end the challenges you face within your organization,” she points out.

The final study report, including responses from another 12,000 individuals, will also analyze links between gender and visible minority status, how women from visible minorities are faring compared with their male counterparts. Depending on survey sample rates, the concluding report, to be released in June, may also examine differences between specific ethnic groups, as well as a possible sub-analysis by industry sectors.

“We’re hoping to provide corporate Canada with some real facts and information that they may not have had before,“ Gillis says. “We would hope to also provide some support as they think about talent management practices within their organization....by highlighting some of those issues.”

University of Toronto sociology professor Jeffrey Reitz, who co-authored another recent report on difficulties visible-minority immigrants encounter integrating into Canadian society, echoed some of the observations from the Catalyst-Ryerson report.

“It’s not so much about income levels that seem to affect how people feel about life in the country,” he says. “It’s whether or not they feel they’re getting fair treatment. Perceptions that there’s some form of discrimination in the labour market is certainly very widespread in all of the non-European visible-minority groups....slower social integration of racial minorities is partially related to that problem.”

An organization’s ability to deal with diversity is probably the single most competitive issue facing Canada in this century because of the “war for talent,” says Ryerson’s Wendy Cukier. By 2011, all workforce growth will come through immigration, she points out, and Canadian employers must have programs and processes in place, not just to include them in the workforce, but also to help them grow and develop. 

Immigrants now coming to Canada are from countries that are actually booming, she says. The global competition for skilled workers creates a completely different context in which Canada has to deal with equity and diversity issues.

“It’s not a matter of ethics, it’s not a matter of fairness and small-l liberalism and the Canadian way,” Cukier adds. “It’s a matter of good business sense because of that competitiveness...these issues are around corporate survival and competitive success...and if they don’t get this right, it’s going to have a severe impact on the bottom line”