Northwest employers eye skilled immigrants for hire

A northern Ontarionon-profit group is ramping up efforts to bring more skilled workers to the northwest. Laurentian University's Professions North/Nord wants to make employers in northwestern Ontario aware of the pool of skilled immigrants in Canada looking for work.

Sandy Taddeo, employer outreach officer forthe group, said it tries to match internationally trained professionals like accountants with employers as well as help themgetjob-ready.

"They come, they immigrate to Canada, they have years of experience, but of course, (some) know nothing about Canadian taxation and accounting practices," he said.

"So when they get their credentials assessed, these gaps are going to present themselves."

In the past two months, Taddeo said he's had about 15 employers show interest.

Free service

That's welcome news to Cathy Woodbeck, executive director at the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association.

"The diversity and the understanding of other cultures is always growing and increasing changing in this city, economically," she said.

"It's fantastic that we have available positions [and] employers are desperately looking for employees."

Programs like the ones offered through Professions North/Nord save businesses time and money, Woodbeck added. And it also benefits immigrants, whose skills are going unused.

Taddeo said he's currently mainly working with immigrants hoping for positionsin the engineering, information technology, and financial services fields.

"It's a free service and, when I meet with employers and they give me that time I'm able to articulate [it] could really accent their recruiting and staffing."