Unemployment Minorities Essay

Thesis statement

While Canada is combatting to suppress racism in the labor market, Canada ranks as one of the top countries for racial discrimination in the hiring process, impacting wealth inequality, unemployment rate, income gap, and socioeconomic growth.

Racial profiling in Canadian employment has been an issue for decades. It ranks as one of the top countries for racial discrimination in the hiring process, influencing socio-economic problems such as income inequality and unemployment. However, employers try to reduce the hiring process's bias by implementing policies in the workplace.

The purpose of this research is to comprehend the broad impact caused by systemic racism in the Canadian job market and determine the most efficient way to suppress racial discrimination in the hiring process and workplace. The materials have been gathered and compared with relevant articles, research reports, and census data. However, the research has been done based on a particular timescape, between 2015 to 2020 and in a specific demographic, Canada. Racial discrimination in hiring impacts income inequality, capital gain, income investment, and the unemployment gap.

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While Canada is one of the most ethnically diversified countries, evidence shows that Canada is not as open-minded as it often appears to be when it comes to hiring. Visible minorities in Canada face a significant level of racial discrimination in the biased job and labor market when applying for jobs. A study conducted by Northwestern University researched and analyzed 97 experimental data from nine European countries on the hiring process. The countries needed to have three extensive field experiments on bigotry hiring operations to be involved in the study. The research consisted of data from more than 200,000 fake job applications cataloged by race with imaginary candidates to find the ratio of callback racialized applicants get compared with the white applicants. All the applicants had the same qualifications but different names. The results showed 'white names' received more callbacks comparing the 'non-white names' for interviews from the employers, despite the fact applicants had the same qualifications. 'Canadian job seekers with Asian names are 20%-40% less likely to receive a callback, simply because of their name.' (Banerjee, Reitz & Oreopoulos, 2018, pg. 2-3). The authors of the research paper 'Do large employers treat racial minorities more fairly?' indicate having a non-Anglo name, including an English-Canadian first name with an ethnic last name, can be a barrier to getting a job. It has been observed during the research, companies and hiring managers assume that applicants with an Asian background or Asian name cannot be a good fit for the organization and exclude them from interviews. Employers often think that there is going to be a language barrier or a heavy accent or something that would interfere with a person's ability to do the job or interact well with others in the workplace; Dr. Reitz, when asked about the reason behind the bias selection of resumes with an Asian name. Canadian black youths aged from 15-24, whether born Canadian or immigrant, face challenges higher to being employed despite having the educational background equivalent to those of other young Quebeckers and Canadians of French or British origin. (Pierre, 2019, para.4). Moreover, apart from being perceived as having different identities, young people from such racialized minority groups have to deal with disadvantages such as lack of working experience and training, which ultimately leads to racial oppression in the labor market. Highly skilled Canadian immigrants often get turned down for jobs that require advanced skills. However, they do jobs that require less skill, which then results in the underutilization of skills for highly educated immigrants. Also, internationally trained individuals with highly advanced and valuable skills face specific regulatory obstacles in obtaining Canadian work experience in their specialized fields when they arrive in Canada. For example, a recent study shows that 44% of internationally trained engineers living in Ontario are not working as engineers. The situation is even worse for women: 50% of internationally trained female engineers in Canada are not even employed. (Ng & Gagnon,2020, pg.16).

A significant gap in economic inequality and unemployment between racialized and non-racialized Canadians is caused by racial discrimination in employment. Economic inequality is one of the prime obstructive outcomes of racial discrimination in Canadian employment that abrupt the economy's balance. Economic inequality is the combination of income inequality, the capital gain gap, and the investment income gap. Racialized Canadians who identify as visible minorities do not have the same access to financial advantages or benefits such as investment and secondary sources of wealth as non-racialized white Canadians. The impact on the commercial influenced by racism in employment leads to income inequality. As of the 2016 census data, there are 7.7 million racialized individuals in Canada, which makes up about 22% of the total population. The racialized population is continuously increasing. For most Canadians, the only source of income is their job wage. According to the 2016 census data of Statistics Canada, the average employment income for non-racialized Canadians was $56,920 (Men) and $38,247 (Women), whereas, the average employment income for all racialized groups was $44,423 (Men) and $33,304 (Women). The earning gap (same gender) between the racialized and non-racialized Canadians was 0.22 (Men) and 0.13 (Women). Besides, men who identified themselves as Black had a lower average income than other men, earning 66 cents per dollar than white men earned. (Block, Galabuzi & Tranjan, 2019, pg.12). This wage gap between a large-scale racialized population and white Canadians directly affects the economic balance system. In 2015, people over the age of 15 reported 8.3% of capital gains in the racialized group, compared to 12% of non-racialized people. Also, there was a gap between racialized Canadians making $10,823 on average - 29% below the average for white Canadians. (Smith,2019, para.6). The income from the investment gap in 2015 is also transparent between racialized and white Canadians. 25% of investment income is reported into the racialized population, compared to about 40% of the white Canadians. Besides, the average investment income gap between racialized and non-racialized people was 47%. (Block, Galabuzi & Tranjan, 2019, pg.18). Unemployment is another socio-economic pillar that gets heavily influenced by racial discrimination. Census data of 2016 shows that the participation rates (people who are actively seeking jobs or working) of racialized people in the labor market are higher than those of non-racialized Canadian people. However, visible minorities had a higher unemployment rate than white Canadians by 2 percent. Racialized females experience the highest unemployment rate by 0.8 percent than racialized males. Economic equality is a precondition for achieving racial equality. When Black, Indigenous, and people of color have equal income, thus more cash as liquidity and to invest, the economy can be more robust and durable.

Human diversity is essential for a stable organizational structure in various forms in terms of perspective, age, gender, culture, and race. In organizations, a diverse, skilled workforce can reach its full potential in the market both locally and globally. Canada welcomed over three hundred thousand immigrants in 2019. (Statistics Canada, 2019). Most immigrants are highly advanced in specific fields or can potentially contribute to the Canadian economy and communities. However, recent immigrants receive lower wages because they have less seniority than their non-immigrant employees. Sometimes it is due to less Canadian work experience or merely because of racial profiling by race. The contradiction of professional qualifications held by many immigrants in other countries, makes it difficult for them to enter the Canadian labor market. Eventually, it leads to higher jobless rates and underutilization among immigrants to Canada, wildly colored Canadians. Moreover, it is assumed that Canada's nine million baby boomers will reach retirement age by the end of this decade. Since Canada has a low birth rate, it relies on immigration to drive the majority of its labor force growth. (El Assal, 2020, para.11). So, the active skilled immigrant labor force is a significant way to sustain Canadian economic growth. Otherwise, the economic structure will crumble, leading to a halt to economic growth and living standards. Although, Canadian corporates and businesses are stepping up to take the initiative against systemic racism and create a workforce that brings diversity into the workplace to use the potentiality of the richness of diverse backgrounds. 'The Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism has announced the names of more than 200 organizations who signed on to the BlackNorth initiative – a commitment to take specific actions that will help end anti-Black systemic racism in corporate Canada.' (Denuzzo, 2020, para.9). Coca-Cola joined the BlackNorth initiative alongside hundreds of Canadian companies. The business giant company Coca-Cola established a unique social justice task force that detects unconscious bias actions and racial discrimination to run bias-free business operations. The mission was to educate employees about racism, recruit skilled, diverse employees from the talent pool, and generate fair workplace policies.

In conclusion, systemic racism in the Canadian job market's hiring process is a significant issue, examining its impacts on social and economic structures. Various studies and research show that bias can influence financial elements such as wealth income inequality, and income investments. Also, it has a social impact on rising unemployment, as racialized job seekers do not get a callback from employers despite having the required skills. Human resource management can prevent racial profiling by implementing improvised policies and diversification to hold employers accountable for their actions. Studying the social resource management system and highly diversified organizations' practices may give Canadian employers useful insights concerning racial discrimination.