Publications

May 2025

New Data Highlights Ongoing Barriers for Racialized Newcomer Women in the Workforce

Latest results from the CPRNW pilot demonstrate benefits from programming targeted for racialized newcomer women. One year after joining the program, participants see improvements in career adaptability, employment outcomes, and wellness and mental health. This report presents changes in outcomes and program impacts and details the implementation of the CPRNW pilot including the flexibility it provided to partnering service provider organizations to learn, both from their own experiences and from the other partnering service providers, and to modify their programming to better meet the needs of participants.
February 2024

CPRNW Intermediate Outcomes and Program Impacts

Our latest infographic shares compelling findings from the surveys in the CPRNW pilot exploring the employment experiences of racialized newcomer women in Canada. The data shows that many encounter racism and discrimination—not just during the hiring process, but also on the job. These unfair experiences are taking a toll, with many respondents reporting impacts on their confidence, and mental and physical health. Dive into the infographic to see the key findings and reflect on what this means for creating truly inclusive workplaces.

August 2022

CPRNW Intermediate Report

This interim report presents findings for the CPRNW pilot for participants enrolled in the first 20 months of the project. It provides an analysis of the short-term changes in outcomes and program impacts and an exploratory analysis of the effectiveness of the programs for various subgroups. The pilot is still in progress; the findings should be considered preliminary as programming and data collection are ongoing (as of the writing of this report). We are, however, encouraged and cautiously optimistic with the significant findings in the short-term changes in outcomes and program impacts for CPRNW.

November 2021

Experiences with Discrimination and Racism in Employment Report

The women in this study felt welcomed as racialized newcomers in Canada and yet, they were disappointed and surprised to experience discrimination and racism as they looked for employment, accessed employment services, and when they found work, in the workplace. This qualitative study explores the experiences of these women, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of racialized newcomer women’s perceptions and personal experiences with discrimination and racism in employment. As it is exploratory, findings from this study cannot provide conclusive results. Rather, the results contribute to an important dialogue to promote positive changes to support racialized newcomer women’s integration into the Canadian labour market as it is affected by racism and discrimination. This is what we heard…

August 2021

CPVMNW Photovoice Report

Stories and images provide rich and compelling information that help us understand and engage with the experiences of others. The Career Pathways for Visible Minority Newcomer Women (CPVMNW) Pilot project used Photovoice as one component of the evaluation. Photovoice is a visual participatory action research methodology. Ten women were recruited to participate in this Photovoice project. The women had participated in the CPVMNW programs and were located across Canada. They shared and reflected on what their photos represented to them. Through the collaborative interpretation and discussion, the women and researchers gained a deeper and more nuanced understanding of opportunities and challenges in their settlement journey.

March 2021

CPVMNW Pilot Project Implementation Report

This is the first report looking at the implementation phase, from October 2019 to September 2020, of the Career Pathways for Visible Minority Newcomer Women (CPVMNW) Pilot Project when the programs had been in operation for about one year. More specifically, we documented the 11 interventions based of the four employment models as implemented by the eight service provider organizations. The report also explores challenges they faced in implementing the models, summarizes the characteristics of the women who have participated in the programs to date, and describe what has worked well, challenges, and lessons learned to date. It also presents some early thoughts on how the interventions can be improved from the perspectives of the women who participated in the interventions and delivery staff. Since the pilot is still in progress, the findings are preliminary; it sets the stage for the final outcomes and impacts evaluation report included in this pilot.

January 2021

Can Specialized Programming Help Newcomer Women Cope with COVID-19?

The Career Pathways for Visible Minority Newcomer Women Pilot Project conducted a COVID-19 survey with project participants to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on the pilot and, more importantly, on participants. Learn more about some exciting findings from the survey.

February 2019

Literature Review: Career Pathways for Visible Minority Newcomer Women in Canada

This report presents literature review, one of several activities in the research project. The main objectives of the literature review are to: identify the current state of knowledge on the main factors affecting the employment outcomes of visible minority newcomer women; identify the relevant policies and initiatives that exist on different levels of the government and in the community; and summarize the best practices of providing employment and settlement support to the visible minority newcomer women.

February 2019

What We Heard From Visible Minority Newcomer Women

This report is one of four activities of the knowledge gathering and background component of the research project. It engages visible minority newcomer women in focus groups and interviews to gather their experiences and insights on current employment programming and their suggestions for improvements to employment programs to make services and support more aligned with their needs.

February 2019

What We Heard From The Stakeholder Consultations

As part of the knowledge gathering and development phase of this research project, SRDC held eleven roundtables between December 2018 and January 2019 across Canada with experts and stakeholders in the settlement and integration domain. We encouraged participants to share their experiences and insights. More specifically, we received their input in designing employment services models for visible minority newcomer women, which will help develop a pilot with a better fit and results for newcomer women. This report summarizes overall key takeaways, comments, inputs and observations from the consultations.

January 2019

Labour Market Integration Experience of Newcomer Women in SRDC Pilot Projects

This report is one of four activities in the knowledge gathering and background component of the research project. It examines three SRDC research projects that focus on employment services. The main component involves an analysis of the experiences of newcomer women participants in Foundations Workplace Skills Project (FWSP), a three-year initiative implemented at three sites across Canada.

Resources

No names No Bias: Revolutionizing the Hiring Process

What is name bias in the hiring process?

Learn what the YWCA Metro Vancouver did to address this issue in their ASPIRE employment program.

Visible Minority Newcomer Women Pilot: Lessons Learned – Retrospective Study of the New Partners Initiative

Budget 2018 launched the Visible Minority Newcomer Women (VMNW) pilot with the aim to improve the employment and career advancement of newcomer women who identify as a visible minority. As part of the pilot, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada solicited proposals from eligible organizations that have not previously received funding from the department to design and implement programs to integrate VMNW into the Canadian labour market.

This report documents the implementation and outcome experiences of 18 funded organizations and the VMNW who participated in their interventions. In particular, the report identifies the challenges the organizations faced in implementing their interventions, including those posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reports on the employment and social, psychological, and human capital outcomes of the VMNW; the partnership and other outcomes of the organizations; and what worked well, and lessons learned from the experiences. The report identifies lessons learned for future programming and partnerships. Finally, the report concludes with some policy implications and recommendations.