Career Advancement in Corporate Canada: A Focus on Visible Minorities – An Early Preview (Report)

By 2017, visible minorities are expected to represent one in five people in Canada’s available workforce; by 2011, they will comprise all net growth in the labour force. These talented, hard-working women and men will be critical to the performance of Canadian companies and firms in the decades to come.

This report is the first of five in the Career Advancement in Corporate Canada: A Focus on Visible Minorities series, which explores how visible minority women and men perceive their career advancement and development in corporate Canada. The series is based on research conducted by Catalyst and the Diversity Institute in Management & Technology at Ryerson Institute in Toronto. This report focuses on the recognition of foreign educational credentials and career satisfaction among visible minority workers.

The report suggests that a lack of recognition of foreign educational credentials has implications for employees’ career satisfaction and their interest in exploring opportunities outside Canada. It also notes clear differences between the perceptions of visible minority and White respondents. Other findings include:

• Visible minority managers, professionals, and executives experienced lower rates of career satisfaction than White respondents.
• A sizeable percentage of visible minority respondents with foreign educational credentials felt their organizations did not recognize these educational credentials as being “on par” with equivalent Canadian degrees, diplomas, and certificates.
• Visible minority respondents with foreign education credentials that were not recognized as “on par” were the least satisfied with their careers and were more likely to plan to explore career opportunities outside Canada than were visible minority respondents without foreign educational credentials, as well as White respondents regardless of where they received their educational credentials.

Lead Sponsor: RBC Financial Group
Participating Sponsors: Deloitte & Touche, IBM Canada
Supporting Sponsors: Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration