Win-win scenario: qualified refugees help employers fill gaps in the labor market with labor mobility

Canada’s Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP), a labor mobility program for refugees, matches qualified refugees looking to rebuild their lives with employers looking to fill gaps in the labor market. This concept has been particularly successful in Canada’s long-term care sector. As part of the EMPP, hundreds of jobs have been filled, and hundreds of refugees and their families have found new homes after sometimes decades of waiting.

Bahati Maganjo, one of the first refugee candidates to relocate to Canada as part of the EMPP in 2021 and now Labor Mobility Advisor at RefugePoint, spoke on a panel last month at AdvantAge Ontario’s annual conference. The session, “Immigration Pathways to Build LTC (long term care) Workforce,” highlighted how two long-term care homes in rural Ontario looked outside of the province to meet their labor needs. Panelists discussed the benefits of and differences between the EMPP and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) and how Canadian long term care homes have successfully used both programs to address significant staffing shortages.