The City of Montreal is launching a new strategy designed to help landed immigrants find employment.
A group of representatives from the city, the province of Quebec, and employers met on Monday to discuss the $1.6 million project, which will be launched later this year. Key members included Quebec Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette and Frantz Saintellemy, president of Groupe 3737, an organization that works with immigrant and visible minority entrepreneurs.
In 2018 Montreal’s overall unemployment rate was 6.1 per cent, but the unemployment rate for landed immigrants was higher, at 7.5 per cent. Those who had arrived in the past five years had an even higher unemployment rate of 11.9 per cent, much higher than the 5.3 per cent rate among Canadian-born citizens.
Speaking to the Montreal Gazette, Saintellemy said that the new plan was not only about economics but also about preserving the dignity of newcomers by helping them integrate into the Canadian workforce.