The province is welcoming more and more immigrants and successfully integrating them into the job market, where conditions have improved significantly, according to a study by the Institut du Québec released on Monday. The reality on the ground would however be much more nuanced, reveal the results of a research project carried out by the Observatory of racial inequalities in Quebec.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
“If we put everything in the same bag and say: ‘immigrants, on the whole, things are better in terms of jobs in Quebec’, that may be true, but there are surely winners and losers”, supposes the co-founder of the Observatory of racial inequalities in Quebec (OIRQ), Victor Armony. The specificities of people of immigrant origin and their experiences must, in his opinion, be taken into account when analyzing the subject.
The results of the study project Racial discrimination in employment, conducted by the OIRQ show that racial discrimination in the workplace is still a major issue. Out of a sample of 137 respondents, 7 out of 10 believe that there are prejudices about their performance at work in connection with their minority status.
“Indeed, the report shared by the Institut du Québec seems very positive, even optimistic”, notes the one who admits not having had time to peel all the new statistics on the question. “But we have to go beyond certain figures. The devil is often in the details. »
Accessibility to jobs
“The employment participation rate is substantially the same among the racialized immigrant population, the non-racialized immigrant population and the majority population,” says researcher Vissého Adjiwanou.
Nevertheless, the working conditions in which people from visible minorities evolve can be tinged with internal tensions and performance anxiety linked to the prejudices maintained on the communities, reveal the results collected in February by the researchers.
Factors such as ethnicity, accent, gender and nationality are sometimes considered to be at the source of the manifestations of discrimination to which workers are exposed daily in the course of their employment.
“There is a form of taboo where we think that discrimination is felt only in hiring. Nothing could be further from the truth. Often, they are accentuated, I would even say, according to the experiences”, testifies Marc-Édouard Joubert, president of the regional Council FTQ Metropolitan Montreal, partner of the OIRQ.
In addition, most people from the non-racialized and racialized immigrant population would not work in the sectors in which they would like, explains Mr. Adjiwanou. “Compared to the majority population, the difference is huge,” says the professor in the sociology department of the University of Quebec in Montreal. Several factors, including prior learning recognition, would contribute to this gap.
Realities beyond the digital aspect
“Racism is something we experience individually. Seeing the links that exist between the different individual and collective episodes is complex”, remarks Salvador Hernandez, member of the research team. The OIRQ therefore defends, through the methodology that guides this research project, that it is necessary to take into consideration the different variables that can influence the experience of discrimination at work among people of immigrant origin and members of minorities. visible.
“The objective of this study is not to see the extent of the phenomenon. Well, we already know that. It is to see, in people who have suffered discrimination, what are the perceptions that they have drawn from these experiences”, specifies the researcher Vissého Adjiwanou.
The relevance of this study is therefore rooted in the collection of conclusive and qualitative data, according to the research team. “Sometimes, we will even say that we have already documented enough and that it is time to take action, but we know that, we still have to convince. Convince public opinion, convince the media, the decision-makers, the authorities”, remarks Mr. Armony.