The ACTEW Blog

Our newest fact sheet on women's employment shows that poverty among newer immigrants is increasing, even while their education is increasing. Some statistics include:

• 18% of immigrant women have a university degree, in comparison with 14% of Canadian-born women.
  
  
• In 2001, immigrant women had an unemployment rate of 8.1%, compared 7% with Canadian-born women, and 6.8% for immigrant men.
  
  
• Newer immigrants of both sexes are facing greater difficulties getting work and securing stable, well-paying positions than previous generations of immigrants and unemployment rates among ethno-racial groups vary dramatically, from as high as 35% to as low as 2.5%.
  
  
• Recent immigrant women earn significantly less than other women and men, averaging just $16,700 – well below the poverty line.

View or download the fact sheet on ACTEW's Putting Women in the Picture web site:
http://www.actew.org/projects/pwpsite/snapshots/immigrant.html.
We welcome any leads on further research related to immigrant women's employment issues.

Labels: ACTEW_Activities, Issues_and_Trends, Resources_and_Research

The lack of suitable program supports and government eligibility criteria are the two greatest challenges to providing adequate services to newcomer women, ACTEW’s Pre-LMDA Survey finds.

Almost two-thirds of the survey respondents with newcomer women as clients reported that government criteria limits client access to programs. One respondent explained the situation:

“Some of the programs are for recent immigrants only. Some are for professionally trained individuals only. Those who do not belong to these categories are either excluded from services or fees are charged.”

According to respondents, eligibility rules need to recognize and respond to the typical life circumstance of newcomer women:

“The women we serve are in often in a state of trauma, and cannot commit to a strident eligibility or expectations of participation. They require something more fluid as they seek supports on immigration, family cohesion, affordable housing, and supports for their mental health issues.”

Like organizations that serve all women, those with many newcomer women as clients wish they could offer many more program supports. If they could offer more supports, agencies serving newcomer women say that increasing childcare would be their first priority. In comparison, the general survey respondent population gave training dollars for short-term courses the highest priority.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends, Resources_and_Research

ACTEW’s Deanna Yerichuk attended the most recent LMDA Transition Service Delivery Advisory Group (SDAG) meeting on February 16, 2007. We have the following information to share with you:

Now that the transfer is complete, the LMDA transition team continues focus on business continuity (“business as usual”) and is starting to turn long-term attention to policy and program integration and alignment.

That being said, MTCU still says they are continuing with a slow planning approach, and intend to engage key stakeholders and local planning processes to ensure systems meet the needs of communities. They intend to make “Customer Focus” the priority through focusing on the infrastructure build as well as program design and service delivery.

Here are copies of the PowerPoint presentations provided at the meeting:

• Employment Ontario ...The Challenge Ahead
• Rapid Re-Employment and Training Service presentation
  

Also, we understand that MTCU will soon be launching an “Employment Ontario Partnership Gateway”. We’ll let you know as soon as this site is live.

The meeting also established that there is an important and ongoing role for community service providers through the SDAG, and MTCU appears committed not only to working with community reps in the existing committee structure, but examining ways that community knowledge and expertise can be more effectively leveraged in their planning and implementation processes. This may include tapping into community networks to collect and disseminate information for planning purposes.

The terms of reference for the group will be redrafted and ACTEW looks forward to bringing input from Ontario’s women’s training community to the table in policy and program development.

Finally, the LMDA transition team is actively seeking input on the challenges, opportunities and priorities that the community-based training sector sees over the next year. If you have feedback you’d like to get into MTCU’s hands, please contact Deanna at deanna@actew.org, and we’ll bring forward all concerns, issues and priorities.

Want to find out what happened at the December 2006 SDAG meeting?

Labels: ACTEW_Activities, MTCU_Updates

The latest Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada indicates that women are making strong employment gains. Women experience growth in employment gains at 3.9%, whereas men's growth was only at 1.9%.

In fact, Statscan says that:

"In 2006, almost two-thirds of all the employment gains were among adult women. The proportion of women aged 25 and over who were working hit a record high in December 2006. This brought their unemployment rate to a 30-year low by year end, lower than that of adult men."

These statistics suggest that more women are entering into the workforce.

However, the Survey doesn't tell us the form of employment -- full- or part-time -- or the rate of pay. Does this increase actually represent a move towards financial stability for Canadian women? Does it mean that women are less likely to be poor?

The Statscan report Women in Canada (2006) suggests that while more women may be working, they are not statistically getting closer to economic self-sufficiency. The report finds that:

• women are almost three times as likely to work part-time than men
  
• women's average incomes are just 62% of what men make

More questions need to be asked about the kinds and quality of work women are getting before we know if Statscan is giving us good news afterall.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends, Resources_and_Research

At the Women's Summit in November, 65 Brockville-area women interviewed each other on the key issues for business and personal life. The Summit host, the Employment and Education Centre (EEC), has just released the final report, which summarizes the findings of that exercise.

Four questions were posed to every woman in attendance. Particular themes arose for each.

1. The first question asked what challenges women face today. The most common responses included barriers to education and work-life balance.


2. The second question focused on concerns for self-employed women. Participants cited the financial burden and insecurity of income in starting up and running a business.


3. The third question asked what priorities would women have if they had unlimited funds to spend. Hands down, the women named childcare and employment and training opportunities as the top two priorities.


4. The last question asked what are women's opportunities. Among many possibilities, women responded that they must get more involved in policy-making that affects women's lives on a daily basis.

Do these themes resonate with your experiences? Would you have said something different?

You can download the full report on ACTEW's Putting Women in the Picture events page. Note you can also download the joint presentation delivered by Service Canada and MTCU at the Summit.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends, Meetings_and_Events, Resources_and_Research