We Are Not Lazy! Employment and Racialized Immigrants in Edmonton, Alberta

Abstract

Canada’s labour force has depended on immigrant populations to drive economic growth and workforce development. However, racialized immigrants face significant barriers in securing employment that aligns with their foreign education, training, and work experience. This qualitative study utilized seven focus group interviews with 44 racialized immigrants to explore their experiences in job searching, employment retention, and career advancement in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The findings revealed five main themes: (a) lack of recognition for foreign credentials; (b) absence of Canadian work experience and survival jobs; (c) language and accent barriers; (d) childcare and motherhood; and (e) Islamophobia. This study offers a comprehensive understanding of systemic discrimination and gender-related obstacles encountered by racialized immigrants, which hinder their integration into the labour market. It underscores the need to revisit immigration policies to better align with labour market realities and address these inequalities.

1. Introduction

Immigrants play a vital role in Canada’s labour market, especially as many sectors face workforce declines due to retirements and low fertility rates (Statistics Canada 2022). In Canada, as in other industrialized nations, immigrants enter the country through five main pathways: economic, family reunification, humanitarian and compassionate grounds, refugee status, and international student status (IRCC 2025). The distribution of immigrants across various categories has changed significantly over time. However, the recently released immigration level plans from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for 2026–2028 indicate a reduction in the number of temporary workers and international students during this period (IRCC 2025). This shift aims to address Canada’s infrastructure needs, particularly in major cities, while creating stronger economic opportunities. The goal is to establish a stable immigration system that both benefits new immigrants and supports Canada’s long-term growth and development (IRCC 2025). However, the proposed decline raises important questions about its potential impact on Canada’s future population growth and labour force, which depend on immigrants, as well as its broader effects on society.

In 2023, Canada welcomed 272,744 individuals under the economic class, marking a 6.7% increase from the previous year (IRCC 2024). Candidates are evaluated based on education, work experience, language proficiency, and adaptability. This number indicates the country’s reliance on highly educated and skilled immigrants to meet its labour market needs (Karki 2026).

International students wishing to study at designated Canadian institutions obtain a study visa from IRCC. In 2023, a total of 682,889 international students arrived in Canada, marking a 30% increase from the previous year. Many of these students decide to apply for permanent residency in order to live and work in Canada (IRCC 2024). However, these numbers are expected to decrease significantly under IRCC’s 2026–2028 plan, which aims to reduce international student admissions to Canadian institutions (IRCC 2025). The government claims this plan will address Canada’s housing and health care crises to ensure sustainability in its immigration rates (Liddle 2025). We contend that this approach does not effectively tackle these issues; instead, it unjustly blames international students, further marginalizing them and potentially impacting their future.

While immigrants enter Canada through the various pathways discussed earlier, a significant number of these highly skilled individuals—including racialized people and internationally educated professionals—find themselves underemployed or unemployed (Ng and Gagnon 2020). Canadian data shows that wage and employment gaps are often influenced by race, indicating that labour market discrimination is a concerning issue (Block and Galabuzi 2011).

This article builds on our earlier analysis of settlement supports in Edmonton (Intungane et al. 2024), which examined the systemic barriers preventing racialized newcomers from achieving meaningful economic integration from the perspective of service providers. While that paper reviewed available settlement and employment programmes and highlighted their shortcomings, the present study focuses on the perspectives of racialized immigrants and their experiences with job seeking, retention, and advancement. Our analysis is based on data collected from seven focus groups consisting of 44 racialized immigrants. We examine their lived experiences through the frameworks of critical race theory and intersectionality. Critical race theory helps us identify systemic patterns of exclusion, while intersectionality allows us to understand the variations within those patterns. Together, these approaches reveal that racism does not act in isolation in the employment experiences of racialized immigrants. Instead, it intersects with Islamophobia and sexism, language bias, colonial logics, and unrecognized caregiving, depending on the participants’ social contexts.

In the following sections, we outline the relevant literature on racialized immigrants and their barriers to employment (e.g., credential non-recognition, a lack of Canadian experience, and discrimination); describe our methodology; and review our key findings. Finally, we explore the implications of our research, especially how our conclusions could support racialized immigrants in their journey to find and maintain employment. Throughout this paper, we use the terms “racialized persons” or “racialized immigrants,” which are commonly used in Canada to identify the experiences of people from different racial and cultural backgrounds.

2. Literature Review

Our previous study in Edmonton (Intungane et al. 2024) found that racialized immigrants face persistent employment barriers that include racial microaggressions, non-recognition of foreign credentials and work experience, and a scarcity of programmes addressing racism in job seeking or the workplace. A recent Canadian report by Akbar and Triandafyllidou (2025) highlighted the issue that many highly educated immigrants end up in jobs for which they are overqualified and receive lower wages. Those who possess foreign credentials and work experience are especially vulnerable to these employment mismatches. Other researchers have observed similar patterns of exclusion in various mid-sized cities. For instance, in a study focused on highly educated newcomers in Edmonton, Alberta, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Thomas (2021) identified several key obstacles to economic integration, including the lack of recognition of foreign credentials, racial discrimination, and the requirement of Canadian experience (a common requirement). Thomas argued for a standardized credential assessment process that would begin before immigrants arrived in Canada; he also advocated that IRCC improve the management of newcomers’ expectations, taking recent employment trends into account, to help immigrants decide whether Canada is a suitable destination for them.

Echoing Thomas’ findings, a 2020 report by Ng and Gagnon identified that racialized immigrants who have lived in Canada for less than five years face significant unemployment challenges. These challenges often arise from a lack of recognition of their foreign credentials, insufficient Canadian work experience, and limited official language skills for the jobs they seek. Many of these immigrants are highly educated and possess valuable work experience from abroad. As Foster (2015) observed, such demands mean that new immigrants are expected to fit in culturally and be immediately productive in the Canadian workforce. However, their labour market trajectories are constrained by systemic discrimination and barriers that inhibit the full utilization of their professional skills and expertise (Karki 2026). Further, Sakamoto et al. (2018) argued that the demand for Canadian work experience is discriminatory and creates barriers for new immigrants entering the labour market. As a result, Canadian experience becomes the primary criterion employers use to measure employability, undermining the diverse skills and qualities immigrants bring. Similarly, Banerjee et al. (2024) found that many immigrants, particularly those who are racialized, face challenges in getting their educational credentials recognized in various professional fields. In regulated professions such as engineering, medicine, and law, gatekeeping mechanisms often prioritize Canadian credentials (Bauder 2003; Cox 2023).

As a result, many highly educated immigrants struggle to find jobs that match their qualifications and training. While education and previous work experience are essential for immigrants applying under the economic class, these requirements often do not align with Canadian employers’ expectations, particularly for those who completed their post-secondary education outside Canada. The findings of Banerjee et al. (2024) suggest the need to engage employers (including small and medium-sized businesses) in training and tools to evaluate foreign credentials and work experience, and to provide immigrants with free training and subsidized loans to help them meet Canadian labour market expectations.

An Ontario study by Amoako et al. (2024) found that Black African immigrant women, particularly those from Nigeria, face greater challenges securing well-paid and permanent employment than White women. The study showed that these women struggled to find employment commensurate with their education and prior work experience. These women also experienced discrimination in their workplaces due to their non-Canadian accents and social identities (e.g., race, gender, and immigration status), which may have contributed to a failure to recognize their credentials and pressured them into accepting low-wage, menial jobs. Creese and Wiebe (2012) and Yssaad and Fields (2018) similarly argue that the failure to acknowledge foreign credentials is a significant driver of unemployment and underemployment of racialized immigrants, particularly Black African women. Amoako et al. (2024) recommended that settlement agencies receive additional funding to design skill-bridging and co-op programmes that support new immigrants in re-entering professional careers commensurate with their education. In addition, workplaces need to implement and follow through on employment equity and anti-racist policies that support new immigrants in finding and retaining employment.

The International Migration Outlook report (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlights that many immigrants are overqualified for their jobs due to challenges with the transferability of their human capital (2025). This includes challenges such as credential recognition, barriers to obtaining necessary licences, language difficulties, and mismatches between the host country’s labour market and immigrants’ skills (p. 138). Research conducted in Ontario and Alberta demonstrates that these global trends are evident in Canada’s provincial labour markets.

Migration trends and barriers are not unique to Canada. In countries across the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), immigration is being restricted, and migration policies are being tailored to address specific labour market needs (OECD 2025). Although Canada (along with Belgium and Germany) is recognized for expanding its integration framework, the key determinant of an immigrant’s level of integration is increasingly linked to their employment status (OECD 2025, p. 110). Immigrants in OECD countries are more likely to be employed in lower-paying sectors, earning up to 34% less than native-born residents. This wage gap is particularly pronounced among immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (OECD 2025, p. 124).

These studies collectively show that racialized immigrants in Canada and in other developed countries face significant discriminatory challenges when seeking and maintaining employment. These challenges include the non-recognition of foreign credentials, the lack of host country work experience, and issues related to education and communication skills. Furthermore, these factors intersect with race, gender, and immigration status, resulting in both unemployment and underemployment among this group of immigrants in Edmonton, Alberta.

3. Theoretical Framework

This study draws on two theoretical insights: intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989, 1991; Collins 2019) and critical race theory (Delgado and Stefancic 2023), both of which ground the structural embeddedness of inequality and emphasize the lived experiences in illuminating power asymmetries. The rationale for integrating intersectionality and critical race theory into this study is twofold. These frameworks provide a theoretically rigorous and politically grounded lens for examining the structural violence embedded in the Canadian labour market. Second, the frameworks enable a methodological praxis that centres the embodied situated knowledge of marginalized groups. Intersectionality also helps to interrogate how race, class, gender, and other social categories intersect to produce and sustain forms of exclusion that are institutionally entrenched yet often rendered invisible by the dominant discourse of Canada’s multiculturalism.

Critical race theory helped us critique structural racism, which is not accidental but a normalized, systemic feature of social institutions (Delgado and Stefancic 2023). Critical race theory challenges liberal narratives and neutrality, emphasizing that race is socially constructed yet materially consequential. Crenshaw et al. (1995) argue that racism includes the ideological scaffolding of Euro-American and Canadian societies, which shapes policies, legal norms, and institutional practices and procedures that perpetuate racial hierarchies. Intersectionality is not limited to identifying multiple identities; it can also be used as a structural analytic to interrogate how macro-level forces (e.g., immigration policy, labour market regulations, and neoliberalism) converge to shape micro-level experiences of exclusion. For example, the devaluation of racialized immigrants’ credentials and prior work experiences in the Canadian labour market is not incidental; instead, it is indicative of how Whiteness and Canadian-born experience are constructed as normative, while foreign knowledge and education are delegitimized (Block and Galabuzi 2011).

These theoretical frameworks also inform the study’s methodological design. During data collection, purposive sampling targeted participants whose identities reflected multiple axes of subordination, including race, ethnicity, languages, and occupational backgrounds. This aligns with McCall’s (2005) intra-categorical approach, which examines complexity within marginalized groups often seen as homogeneous. The use of focus group interviews guided by semi-structured questions was informed by the intersectional narrative, reflexivity, and multiplicity. Additionally, participants’ narratives reveal how racialized perceptions of foreign education and work experience are embedded in the neoliberal discourses of soft skills and cultural fit, reinforcing systemic discrimination despite racialized immigrants’ formal education and work experience. These findings demonstrate how employers and institutions function as gatekeepers to regulate racialized immigrants’ access to the labour market.

4. Methodological Approach

4.1. Study Setting and Design

This study was conducted in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Our goal was to explore the experiences of racialized immigrants in securing employment, retaining jobs, and advancing in their careers. Alberta has the third-highest proportion of racialized groups in Canada at 26.1%, following Ontario at 33.9% and British Columbia at 33.8% (Government of Alberta 2025). Many of Alberta’s racialized communities are concentrated in three cities: Brooks has the highest proportion of racialized residents at 48.5%, followed by Edmonton at 42.8% and Calgary at 41.4% (Government of Alberta 2025). We focused on Edmonton, Alberta, because it has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations in Canada (Zimonjic 2023), making employment a significant issue for this population.

This research employed a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive design to provide rich insights into participants’ perceptions and experiences within their everyday work environments, eliciting their perspectives and recognizing them as experts in their work (Babbie and Roberts 2018). In other words, the qualitative study design and the rationale for this methodology were rooted in the aim of gathering valuable, practical, and appropriate information. Using the intersectionality theoretical framework, we asked broad questions and listened actively to participants’ employment experiences. This research approach also expanded participants’ understanding of the unique employment barriers through stories of racism, discrimination, and sexism. The following questions guided the study:

• How has your racialized identity affected your experience of being hired and retaining your current or past jobs in Edmonton?
• Please briefly describe this experience in whatever level of detail you feel comfortable
• Are you aware of any policies or practices that address racism in the workplace? Please describe them.

4.2. Recruitment and Sampling

Informed by our critical analysis and recognition of ourselves as co-producers rather than exclusive sources of knowledge, our desire to promote collaboration, and our interest in gaining an understanding of the research topic (Naderifar et al. 2017), we formed a research advisory committee. The committee included the research team and two service providers working with employment settlement services. By meeting regularly, the research team and the committee shared power, revised the study questions (Pinto et al. 2015), and coordinated participant recruitment and knowledge dissemination. We also hired community connectors to help us recruit participants for our focus groups. A community connector is a trusted member of the target community who serves as a cultural and relational bridge between researchers and populations that are often underrepresented in scholarly work or are difficult to reach through conventional recruitment methods (Ellis and Muyita 2025; Salma and Giri 2021). Beyond recruitment, connectors speak the participants’ language, share cultural knowledge, and have pre-existing relationships in the local community to facilitate access and create conditions in which participation feels safe and legitimate (Ellis and Muyita 2025). We identified community connectors by first approaching local cultural organizations representing these populations in Edmonton; here, we explained our research and asked to be connected with a well-networked community member who met the specified parameters. We did not require a community connector to reach the Nepalese community as the fourth author was already connected to this community. However, we hired community connectors to reach members of the Francophone African, Somaliland, and Muslim communities in Edmonton.

The MacEwan University Research Ethics Board approved the study protocols prior to recruitment and interviews (File #101810). We used purposive and snowball sampling for this study. Purposive sampling is appropriate for selecting unique cases that are especially informative (Neuman 2006), while snowball sampling is a convenient method in which existing study participants refer to future participants, thereby expanding the pool (Naderifar et al. 2017). The rationale for choosing these sampling strategies was to recruit racialized immigrants aged 18 to 65 years who were born, raised, educated, and had worked outside Canada prior to their migration. They also had to be actively involved in the Canadian labour market for at least 2 years to ensure they had ample time to experience employment, retention, and unemployment.

For this study, we collected data through seven focus group interviews with 44 participants from September 2021 to May 2022. We shared our recruitment flyers with the advisory committee members since they worked with employment and settlement services in Edmonton and were willing to support through their networks. Recruitment in qualitative research is most effective when researchers are familiar with the population and actively engage in sampling (Negrin et al. 2022). To minimize bias and broaden the study’s reach, we encouraged participants to recommend other potential participants until we reached data saturation (Negrin et al. 2022). Sandelowski (1995) suggested that a sample size of 5 to 30 participants is sufficient for a qualitative study to provide an in-depth understanding and thematic richness. By recruiting 44 participants, we successfully achieved data saturation.

4.3. Data Collection

We collected data through focus group interviews. According to Wilkinson (2004), focus groups are “a way of collecting qualitative data, which involves engaging a small number of people in informal group discussions around a particular topic or issue” (p. 177). We chose to use focus group interviews because this method can provide unique insights that might not be captured through individual interviews. Additionally, Onwuegbuzie et al. (2009) noted that focus groups are “less threatening to many research participants, and this setting appears helpful to many participants in discussing their ideas, opinions, and thoughts” (p. 2). Our focus groups varied in size, ranging from 3 to 14 participants. These group sizes were determined based on participants’ availability and language preferences. This flexibility allowed participants to choose their groups. Four of the focus groups were diverse in terms of race, gender, age, and employment, reflecting our interest in varied perspectives.

A total of 44 adults (aged 20 to 62 years) participated in focus groups within four communities: Nepali, Somali, French-speaking African, and Muslim Edmontonians. Our intention in speaking with Muslim Edmontonians was to explore the specific impact of Islamophobia. While representatives from the Nepali, Somali, and Muslim communities met only once, researchers held four different focus groups to accommodate the availability of the French-speaking community.

Before conducting the focus group interviews, participants completed and signed consent forms. We ensured participants’ anonymity by assigning each focus group a number (e.g., FG1: Nepalese, FG2: Somali, FG3: Francophone). One week prior to the initial focus group, the research team held a 2 h workshop reviewing readings on conducting focus group interviews. The workshop was essential to ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of the data. The research team also developed a semi-structured interview guide based on the core research questions identified above to elicit participants’ in-depth experiences.

We conducted one in-person focus group with Nepalese participants (FG1) and Somali participants (FG2) in a community space, adhering to the provisional guidelines on mask use during the pandemic. The fourth author, who identifies as Nepalese and is fluent in the language, conducted the interview with the Nepalese group. The second group, consisting of Somali participants, was facilitated by the first and second authors, with assistance from two interpreters. The third author facilitated four virtual focus groups with Francophone participants (FG3, 4, 5, and 6) via Zoom in French. Finally, the second and third authors held an interview with Muslim Edmontonians in English (FG7). All the interviews lasted between 90 and 120 min to provide participants with sufficient time to recount their stories. The interviews were audio-recorded to enable verbatim transcription and in-depth data analysis.

4.4. Data Analysis

The research team analyzed the verbatim transcripts using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase thematic analysis with an inductive (data-driven) approach (see also, Ahmed et al. 2025). Researchers followed these steps to analysis the data: (a) familiarization with the data through transcribing, active reading, and note taking; (b) generating initial codes through line-by-line coding, reflexive journaling, and data management; (c) searching for themes by clustering similar codes, identifying relationships among codes, and creating thematic maps; (d) reviewing themes from coded data extracts and refining and analyzing key concepts; (e) defining and delineating themes and the stories they tell; and (f) reporting the data in a way that synthesizes the themes using primary data and interpretive commentary (Braun and Clarke 2006, p. 87; Ahmed et al. 2025, p. 3). While coding was primarily inductive, intersectionality and critical race theory helped us to cluster and identify relationships among codes and to build and refine our thematic maps, guiding our understanding of how racism, sexism, citizenship status, and other forms of exclusion connected our data to our research questions. The second author completed the first round of coding, after which the full team met multiple times to compare interpretations, refine code definitions, and consolidate overlapping codes into broader categories. Differences in interpretations were discussed until the team reached consensus, and the codebook was revised iteratively across these meetings. Because focus groups were conducted in Nepali, Somali (via an interpreter), and French, recordings were transcribed and translated into English by team members and interpreters fluent in each language. Such an approach ensured data integrity was preserved during translation. Themes and storied data were then contextualized within the literature exploring racialized, immigrant, and host community experiences of employment.

Participants in our study had varied experiences in Canada, with their time in the country ranging from approximately one year to over three decades. They held different immigration statuses, including recent newcomers, permanent residents, and Canadian-born citizens. The Muslim focus group consisted of only three participants, two of whom were Canadian-born converts presenting as White. This composition reflected racialization based on religious rather than racial factors, leading us to draw on this material more selectively. Overall, the diversity in our data provided nuanced and intersectional insights into the employment experiences of racialized immigrants in Edmonton.

4.5. Rigour and Trustworthiness

Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) criteria were used for data collection, analysis, and findings to ensure the rigour of the data. For transparency, the study included rich quotations from the raw data that reflected participant experiences. The credibility criteria were met by audio-recording during data collection, followed by verbatim transcription to avoid bias. We also enhanced analytic rigour through (a) an adequate, diverse sample size of 44 participants determined by data saturation; (b) frequent meetings of the researchers to reflect on emerging findings; and (c) practicing reflexivity and continuously examining our positionality in the field. In addition to the diverse data sources, we engaged in deep immersion in the field by attending our advisory committee meetings and local immigration network meetings to share and learn about the challenges racialized immigrants face in finding and retaining employment. Reflecting on our social locations helped us track positive and negative biases in the data collection and analysis process, though we endeavoured to intentionally centre our participants’ experiences.

5. Findings

Thematic analysis of participant focus group interviews identified the following themes pertinent to the research questions: (a) lack of credential recognition and discrimination; (b) lack of Canadian work experience and survival jobs; (c) language and accent barriers; (d) childcare and motherhood; and (e) Islamophobia. The themes present participant narratives that critically examine the idealized notion of Canada as a welcoming country for skilled immigrants.

All participants’ quotations were edited for clarity; however, these edits did not alter the study’s findings. Additionally, the participants represented a richly diverse group, including Somali, Nepalese, and Francophone African immigrants, as well as Muslims. They also varied in age, ethnicity, educational background, and years of work experience, which allowed for a complex and nuanced understanding of their experiences in finding and retaining employment in Canada.

6. Results

6.1. Lack of Credential Recognition and Discrimination

The study participants identified the lack of recognition of foreign credentials as a significant barrier to labour market participation in Edmonton. Before migration, the participants had professional experience and had completed post-secondary education (master’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and college diplomas). One participant, Emma (FG 1), shared the following:

Before going through this procedure that brings us here to Canada, we are asked to have our certificates recognized by organizations in Canada that handle all the functions for us and ensure that these documents are validated and reliable. But after we have done this and obtained the equivalences provided by the “World Education Services,” we still can’t use them. If it’s about going to university, they’ll always want to communicate with our local universities. So, it’s like an administrative hindrance to our practice.

This quote highlights the tension surrounding the credential validation process and the broader systemic barriers that hinder and perpetuate immigrants’ access to the labour market due to the lack of Canadian education. Another participant, Peter (FG 4), shared frustration with the foreign credential recognition:

At my very first job, … two [of us were] hired. After 2 or 3 months, I came across the copies we were graded on when we applied … I realized I had many more points than the other person who was hired, but … the other person became my superior. They told me it was because I was new. The other person was Canadian. I found that unreasonable. It’s not because you’re new to a country that you can’t work like someone who is Canadian.

Emma (FG 3), also shared the intersection of racism and the lack of Canadian credentials:

Then, when you are looking for a job, there are stereotypes related to your skin colour. When you say you have certain degrees, people think you are lying because of the images we see in Africa of children under straw huts or working and writing on the floor. We have all been there, although there are several categories of people, there are people who went to university like here, who have Masters, who have Doctorates. So, in front of this confidence in our diplomas and our ability to work well, we have stereotypes and labels. We have to be doubly assertive. Meaning we have to work twice to be accepted.

These stories illustrate the emotional toll experienced by racialized immigrants due to the devaluation of their credentials. Additionally, they emphasize a gap between labour market practices and immigration policies, which tend to focus on selecting economic immigrants while ignoring relevant labour market practices. As a result, many skilled immigrants struggle to find jobs that match their qualifications.

Participants also shared their experiences of workplace racial discrimination and its intersection with the recognition of their credentials. One participant raised concerns about how her employer’s practices undermined the education of racialized immigrants. In contrast, White immigrants faced fewer barriers to hiring, received higher pay, and had their educational qualifications valued more highly. Clara (FG 5) recounted her own experiences related to this issue:

I had already been working for three months before they hired someone directly from Belgium. So, the person told me she had applied online and was recruited directly from Belgium, so we were doing the same jobs, but she was paid more than I was. She was treated better than I was, and they renewed her contract even before it expired. And when I asked about it, they told me that it was because she had studied in Belgium, so automatically, in our heads, we say that it’s because we studied in Africa, that’s why our diplomas are not valued, which pushes you to study here.

This narrative emphasizes that even after racialized immigrants find employment, they still face workplace discrimination because of the intersection of their multiple marginalized identities. These experiences of discrimination are related to their skin colour and country of origin, factors that employers often use to justify the devaluation of foreign credentials and lower wages.

6.2. Lack of Canadian Work Experience and Survival Jobs

This theme addresses the expectation that immigrants must acquire Canadian work experience, often overlooking prior work experience gained in other countries. Before migrating to Canada, all participants had diverse work experience in various fields. They expressed concerns that this requirement was a barrier to finding meaningful employment. This theme intersected with participants’ social location as racialized immigrants, which further limited their employment opportunities. According to Frank (FG 1) and other participants, the “Canadian experience’’ that many employers require is real. Frank shared that while it may be desirable for potential employers to expect a certain degree of experience in the Canadian job market, the total dismissal of the rich experiences of immigrants from their home countries is something that extends racism. Another participant, Clara (FG 3), shared that “despite being dismissed everywhere I applied, they kept asking me about my Canadian work experience, which is already a barrier to entering the labour market.”

Another participant, Ben (FG 2), expressed confusion related to understanding the Canadian work experience:

I needed to know because I was new in Canada and could apply for another job elsewhere at some point. But I wanted to know exactly what they based it on. For example, what kind of Canadian work experience did my supervisor have that I didn’t? So, they told me it was because I was new. The other person was Canadian, but I wasn’t used to the system. And I found that unreasonable. It’s not because you’re new to a country that you can’t work like a Canadian. It seemed they were not interested in my previous work experience.

Due to their lack of Canadian work experience, participants were compelled to accept survival jobs for which they were overqualified. One participant, Isabelle (FG 5), shared her experience working in a position that did not align with her qualifications. She further noted that she was exploited, yet appreciated the learning:

But still, it didn’t work out because there were always a few prejudices. But the good thing is that they don’t accept you, but they give you something that is below your value, while at the same time exploiting you. But like Rose [another focus group participant], I still get a little satisfaction because we are always learning, no matter what. Since I’ve been in Canada, I’ve learned a lot of things that I didn’t know. Technology is different, the way of life differs, and because there are many cultures, I learn from everybody.

Margaret (FG 5), who arrived in Canada with prior qualifications and work experience in her home country, narrated a similar challenge. She also settled in a job where she was discriminated against and paid less than her co-workers with less seniority:

The way we are treated was not the same. You worked more and found that your salary was lower than that of those who had just arrived 2 or 3 days ago. I had to work for 2 years in this situation, but those who came after me had salaries much higher than mine. So, it wasn’t fair given my seniority. After that, I said I should go to school to improve a little. If I have a diploma from here, that will improve my situation.

Participant narratives highlight the challenging experiences of many skilled immigrants who choose to take on survival jobs, often facing exploitation in the process. Although this choice might be seen as a way to gain Canadian experience, it frequently does not address racial and structural discrimination, nor does it lead to meaningful employment for racialized immigrants. Instead, it tends to reinforce their marginalization and the devaluation of their professional identities.

6.3. Language and Non-English Accents

This theme explores how language proficiency and non-English accents reinforce racial hierarchies where non-White “foreign accents” from racialized immigrants are deemed unemployable compared to their White counterparts. Participants’ narratives revealed that their foreign accents were a major barrier that limited their access to the labour market. One participant, Sayyi (FG 2), shared her experiences with language and accents in the workplace:

I have been working for the city for almost 10 years, and they are a bit racist. It seems that all racialized immigrants have a language handicap that is an accent. For example, a supervisor may approach you and ask if you are interested in a job, and although you express your desire, in the face of different prejudices, they always reject you. Because your accent is not suitable. We cannot change our accents. And this is because we speak a second language. If everyone spoke a second language, everyone would have an accent, no matter what language they spoke. And so, it’s unpleasant.

This narrative demonstrates how non-English accents are perceived as undesirable and produce undesirable workers, which upholds institutional racism. Similarly, participant Don (FG1) expressed a deep sense of disillusionment about seeking employment and accent barriers:

Even when you apply for a position, they often have their people already, blaming you for your accent. But who doesn’t have an accent? The Canadians have an accent. The British have an accent. The Australians have an accent. The Americans have an accent. Everybody has an accent. Even the French in Marseille and Lille don’t pronounce everything the same way. The English you take in Africa, Nigerian, Ghanaian, and Liberian are not the same accent. So, when you come to talk about an accent to someone, I do not know what they are looking for. If you speak and they can understand you with the accent. What’s wrong with our accents?

This account illustrates the discrimination participants faced in entering the labour market due to the intersection of their identities, including Blackness, immigration status, gender, and foreign accents.

A French-speaking participant, Lisa (FG3), also shared her experiences with language barriers:

When I arrived here in 2019, the first thing I had to deal with was English. Because I didn’t speak English and needed to find work. However, it was essential to have a good grasp of English so that people would understand you. Also, the accent was challenging.

Another Francophone, Jane (FG 3), expressed her concerns by stating, “As Lisa said, the language barrier is a significant hindrance for many immigrants here.” She explained further:

Because many come from French-speaking Africa, and French is our first language or mother tongue. So, it isn’t easy when you don’t speak English. When you even have an interview in English, you’re at a disadvantage. Because you don’t know how to do it, you don’t know what questions they will ask you. It is difficult for French-speaking immigrants here.

These narratives challenge the ideology of Canadian bilingualism that celebrates French and English as the two official languages while showing the failure to address the discrimination experienced by racialized French-speaking immigrants. They also illustrate how non-White accents are used as a mechanism for labour control, categorizing workers as desirable or undesirable based on race.

6.4. Childcare and Motherhood

This theme examines the influence of gender roles within the home and employers’ expectations of skilled racialized immigrant women in the labour market. Participant stories revealed that both traditional caregiving expectations and employers’ requirements restricted their ability to engage in paid work. The intersecting factors of gender, race, and immigration status further limited these women’s labour-market opportunities. One participant, Don (FG 1), shared her experiences of motherhood and the difficult choices she made:

There is a blockage for us moms. I know that Emma is a mom. I am, too, so you have to find a job that fits the daycare’s hours or have a relative or friend you can leave your kids with. I had to give up multiple jobs because of my child. I had no one to look after my child because I was expected to work from 7 am to 7 pm. So, at some point, you have to make a tough choice.

This example highlights the logistical and emotional challenges that women often face when trying to enter the labour market while still adhering to traditional gender roles. It also shows the sacrifices women frequently make to care for their families, which increases the risks associated with their participation in the paid workforce. Similarly, another participant described the intersections of race and gender, which ultimately limited her participation in the labour market. Margaret (FG 5) reported the following:

They give you hours to push you to leave work, because I have a young daughter. I was expected to work from 11 pm to 7 am, but since she was only five years old, I couldn’t leave her alone at night until early morning when I returned home from work. Also, at my workplace, all the White people were in their groups, so it’s just like being in a foreign country.

In addition to facing racism in the workplace, two participants reported experiencing racism within the school system, which hindered their ability to find paid work outside the home. Participant Heida (FG2) shared her observations about the teachers at her children’s school: “When we send our children to school, the teachers pay extra attention to the Black children, which causes stress on the child, making them hate school, and this also causes stress on the parents.” Another participant echoed Heida’s observations and explained her frustrations with the school. Babu (FG2) reported, “They even pressure the kids to tell them about what happens at home, if their parents abuse them, if they hit them, because we are stereotyped as parents who hurt their kids.”

Our participants’ stories illustrate the triple disadvantages that racialized immigrant women face entering the labour market, maintaining employment, and advancing in their careers. These disadvantages comprise gender biases, systemic racism, and caregiving responsibilities.

6.5. Islamophobia

Although our interview guide did not specifically ask about religious discrimination, participants identified Islamophobia as a significant form of exclusion. For Muslim participants, exclusion based on religion was inextricably linked to racism and, for Muslim women, to sexism as well. In line with an intersectional perspective, participants reported these biases not as separate issues, but as interconnected experiences that shaped one another (Crenshaw 1991; Collins 2019; Delgado and Stefancic 2023).

For veiled women, exclusion was often inscribed on the body through the policing of dress. Aleeza (FG 2), a woman who veils, described how employers contested her clothing at work: “When they hire us, they complain about the clothes we wear and sometimes even our hijabs. They force us to wear pants. If we ask to wear skirts on top, they ask us to [wear] miniskirts.” Under the guise of neutral clothing, workplace dress norms operate to control religious and gender identities, requiring Muslim women to abandon (potentially) traditional or religious dress or to sexualize it. Kate, a Canadian-born, White-presenting Muslim who veils, shared the following:

I’ve had interviews where I refused to shake someone’s hand. I said that this is my choice and it’s against my religion … It was not received very well, so I didn’t get the job. People read my name [which sounded stereotypically Anglophone], but then when they see me, they do two or three double takes.

Kate’s experience includes a hiring-specific scenario where gender, religious practice, and racialization intersect, particularly as it pertains to being Muslim rather than being racialized solely by skin colour.

Participants also identified how Muslim identity functioned as a racializing identity, regardless of race. Tom (FG 7), a Canadian-born, White-presenting Muslim working in anti-racism, cautioned against treating Muslims as a monolith:

There’s an additional problem for newcomers, refugees, and migrants. In discussions around Islam and Muslim identity, the Muslim community is painted as a monolith. But not all migrant experiences are the same. A traumatized Syrian refugee is not equivalent to an Urdu- and English-speaking person from the UK.

Tom’s community work included featuring Muslim Edmontonians on social media with the stated goal of representing different types of Islam (and beliefs) and challenging misconceptions. He explained:

One man I featured was an Albanian med student who walked around in jeans and a cowboy hat with an unkempt beard. Nobody would peg him as Muslim. Likewise, a woman who is White may put on a hijab and suddenly be assumed to be racialized, when she didn’t have that experience growing up. This monolith applied to Muslims is very harmful through the settlement process, because newcomers encounter it from the services they try to access.

Tom’s perspective highlights that skin colour is not the primary factor in racialization within Canadian society. Instead, he argues that Muslim identity—distinct from a more general religious identity like Christianity—serves as the basis for racialization among minority groups in Edmonton, Alberta. This view illustrates how critical race theory emphasizes the socially constructed nature of racialization, which helps illuminate the experiences of newcomers regarding integration. It also addresses the problem of creating a single, homogenized image of “the Muslim.”

A critical reading demands acknowledging diverse experiences among community members, which varied significantly among Muslim participants. For instance, Beena (FG 7) shared her positive experience living in Edmonton:

I just want to say we’ve had an excellent experience since coming to Canada. … When we came here, at the elementary school, the first thing they said after we introduced ourselves was: if your kid needs time to pray, let us know, we’ll set a room aside. My husband and I looked at each other, none of the schools in all the Arab states I’ve been in ever said that. We were impressed. … We’ve had a very positive experience.

Beena’s experience does not diminish the experiences of others who face exclusion. Instead, her experience highlights Tom’s point about the diverse experiences of Muslims living and working in Edmonton, which vary based on factors such as country of origin, gender, and racial identity. When these accounts are considered together, they indicate that Islamophobia arises from various intersections. It can manifest as exclusion directed at the bodies of veiled women, as the racialization of religious identity, or, in some cases, as a lack of impact altogether.

7. Discussion

Canada’s largest immigration pathway is for economic immigrants. These immigrants are selected for their level of education, externally recognized skills, and workplace experience; however, our study and other scholars have found that, upon arrival, our participants found their education devalued, their credentials dismissed, and their workplace experience ignored (Thomas 2021). Across multiple federal and provincial government policies and practices, the selection criteria for immigrants and the realities they face are structurally misaligned (Atique and Nagari 2026). Our research with 44 individuals with varying migration journeys (in terms of length, status, education, employment, and experience) showcased that this exclusion was not the bias of one particular employer or field; rather, we saw a pattern repeated across sectors, city departments, schools, and health care settings, which suggests a systemic rather than incidental problem of racism. Against the backdrop of Canada’s rhetoric of multiculturalism, which has long been critiqued by social science scholars, this multicultural policy requires existing and new Canadians to meet “in the middle” of integration. This is where, ideologically, Canada is supposed to be a space of change both for those arriving and those settlers and arrivants1 who are already here. However, multiculturalism as a policy is experienced as something superficial rather than as a policy for meaningful integration, where newcomers or minority members are asked to accommodate while those considered “truly Canadian” are not asked to shift at all.

This experience was shared by participants in relation to the funding allocated to Black entrepreneurs, which was intended to address anti-Black racism in Canada following the highly publicized murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. They described this funding as “cosmetic,” arguing that it was a temporary measure meant to calm public outrage. They emphasized that “the struggle continues… there are still needs” and pointed out that the “obstacle course” to accessing funding remains significantly more difficult than that faced by others. Overall, our participants’ experiences illustrate that multicultural initiatives often reinforce immigrants’ marginalization in defining who is considered “truly Canadian.” This is evident in how their needs are prioritized, perpetuating a cycle of disillusionment for newcomers.

The problem of credential recognition is not simply a matter of administrative inefficiency in particular spaces, but a racially stratified issue across businesses and industries. In this work, we learned of specific examples in which two immigrants were compared for the same job; they had the same credentials but were from different countries of origin and had different racialized identities. Overall, Black participants’ work (what they earned; how they were treated) was devalued. It has long been understood that racism, in particular anti-Black racism, is a plague on equitable access to the Canadian economy. Participants reported that highly educated immigrants, accepted for their education and work experience, often spend years obtaining Canadian certifications and accreditations, which they consider “brain waste.” Stopgaps have been put in place to address such shortcomings, such as formal equivalency processes (e.g., World Education Services). However, in practice and regardless of the assurances these mechanisms are supposed to provide, our participants still found that their credentials were rejected. As such, the key solution (equivalency services) to address this gap does not function as intended. Not only does this represent a significant economic loss for the nation and reduce productivity, but it also exacerbates inequality and deepens frustration among a segment of the population.

Although many of our findings align with those of other Canadian scholars of immigration, our work uniquely highlighted how stereotypes rooted in negative representations of Africa devalued participants’ education, skills, and experience. Participants learned through personal experience that their colleagues and (potential) employers held images like “children under straw huts,” poverty, and underdevelopment about Africa and about the participants themselves as African immigrants. It is here that critical race theory can help us draw a line between how racism operates as a cultural narrative and not just as individual practice.

Regarding Canadian work experience, our research reasserts the long-standing scholarly finding that this seemingly racially unbiased criterion functions as a barrier to employment, systematically disadvantaging racialized immigrants. Some of our study participants shared their employment experiences, revealing that other candidates were hired because they were “familiar with the system,” which highlighted how employers make this racial logic evident. This reasoning continues to impact immigrants to this day, despite some provinces (such as Ontario) categorizing it as discriminatory (Ontario Human Rights Commission 2013). The requirement for Canadian experience compounds the devaluation of foreign credentials and demonstrates how immigrants are often stuck in a loop of either unrecognized credentials or experience.

Our findings also showcase three distinct intersectional configurations that helped us better understand how multiple oppressive narratives and practices uniquely impact the following groups: (a) Muslim women (racism + Islamophobia or Islamophobia + sexism); (b) Francophone African immigrants (racism + language bias + colonialism); and (3) immigrant mothers (racism + sexism + unrecognized caregiving labour). The issue of Francophone discrimination reveals a contradiction in Canada’s national narrative. Although Canada prides itself on being bilingual, Black African immigrants who took part in our study described their experiences of racial and linguistic exclusion as they settled in an English-speaking city. Participants emphasized the need to address racism experienced by Francophone African immigrants by increasing funding to settlement services, such as the Edmonton Newcomer Centre, to better support this community. Similar to Udayanga (2024), we also found evidence of the motherhood penalty (long-term declines in earnings), with steeper penalties facing Black and “minoritized” women compared to White mothers and immigrants associated with majority communities. We also found evidence of the increased stress on racialized parents from the overabundance of scrutiny on their children, again due to stereotyped beliefs around so-called “non-Canadian” forms of punishment.

7.1. Policy-Practice Gap

This paper focuses on the findings from our focus group data collection. Our team also conducted an online survey with 405 respondents, where 70% reported that their workplace had equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies in place. Additionally, 58% reported receiving some form of equity training (Long et al. 2024). Despite these initiatives, participants in our focus groups consistently expressed that the policies were not achieving their intended goals. Furthermore, 59% of our survey respondents were either unaware of whether their organization collected race-based (or disaggregated by racial identity) data or believed that such data was not being collected. While many Canadians may prefer to believe otherwise, the reality reveals significant gaps in EDI efforts. As community advocates and individuals with lived experience of racism have long argued, it is impossible to address individual or institutional racism without understanding the problem in the first place. To do that, workplaces and infrastructure across Canada need to address this information gap.

As argued in our previous publication on other facets of this project (Intungane et al. 2024), in which we conducted in-depth interviews with service providers in Edmonton, service providers are aware of the policy-practice gap. For example, providers understand that personnel tend to hire people who “look like them,” a practice that occurs despite written equity policies (more information is needed on accountability measures and metrics. Participants in this study proposed a solution centred on meritocracy while also highlighting deficiencies in conventional workplace practices. They recommended that employers implement competitions and clearly communicate the criteria so that competencies can be assessed based on employees’ education and performance. This finding, when combined with the rest of the material in this paper, highlights how this gap is observed both within and outside of the immigrant community in Edmonton. Following Banting and Thompson’s (2021) recommendation, an anti-racism policy that focuses solely on individual or interpersonal racism will not address institutional or structural racism.

Edmonton is often categorized in migration research as an emerging or second-tier gateway, serving as an alternative destination for immigrants outside Canada’s three largest census metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver (McQuillan 2024). This categorization is supported by recent studies, such as Crea-Arsenio et al. (2025) in Ontario and Karki (2026) in British Columbia, which have identified scale-specific barriers to economic integration distinct from those in Canada’s largest destination cities. The devaluation of credentials, accent discrimination, and Canadian experience gatekeeping have also been documented in other mid-sized cities (see, for example, Ertorer et al. 2022). Immigrants are moving to mid-sized cities, and the three-stage employment-seeking framework (settling and searching, trying and testing, adapting and accepting) studied by Crea-Arsenio et al. (2025) maps directly onto the immigrants’ trajectories that we explored; this suggests a common structural pathway of limited economic integration for immigrants in mid-sized cities, regardless of provincial context.

Although Crea-Arsenio et al. described how immigrants navigate the labour market, our findings help explain why racialized immigrants (particularly Black African and Muslim women, Francophone African immigrants living in Anglophone contexts, and racialized mothers) remain disproportionately stuck at the adapting and accepting stage. It is at the nexus of racial identity and immigrant status that policy needs to strategically intervene to produce truly meritocratic results. Our investigation underscores the importance of integrating critical race theory into models of immigrant integration (such as those by Crea-Arsenio et al.).

Similar to the decision of the IRCC, in early 2026, to reduce the number of immigrants, international students, and temporary foreign workers entering Canada in response to housing shortages and infrastructure pressures, policymakers should consider developing and implementing measures aimed at eliminating systemic barriers to promote the smooth economic integration of Black individuals and other visible minority groups.

7.2. Limitations

In this study, we used snowball and purposive sampling through community connectors and settlement service networks. While this approach to sampling seeks to integrate individuals through both formal and informal support infrastructure, it cannot account for racialized immigrants who are isolated, informally employed, or not associated with cultural or community networks or with settlement services. These individuals may face more acute barriers.

Our team conducted many of our focus groups in the native language of the community, including Nepalese, Somali, and French. Those groups conducted in Nepalese and French were held by one of the researchers; however, the research team hired Somali translators and transcribers for the focus groups with individuals from Somaliland. While promising practices advocate conducting focus groups in participants’ native language, the use of translators rather than insider researchers can introduce variation in data depth and social dynamics. Further, we note that social desirability dynamics, in which participants moderate the information they share (particularly around experiences of racism, which may induce feelings of failure, conflict, or shame), may have influenced the information we received. The racial and ethnic diversity of the research team—including Black, Brown, and White researchers—also shaped focus group dynamics in ways that cannot be fully disentangled from the data, as the researchers’ identities likely influenced participants’ disclosures across groups.

We conducted focus groups between September 2021 and May 2022; this was a period where participants, Edmontonians, Canadians, and the world at large continued to grapple with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, where racialized labour market disparities were at their peak (Gender-Based Violence Learning Network 2020). As such, some findings may reflect conditions specific to that acute moment of the intensification of precarious employment. However, we caution against overstating this limitation because the structural barriers documented in this study predate the pandemic and, according to Scott (2025), have widened in the years since.

8. Recommendations

Regarding federal and provincial policy, our recommendations align with Thomas (2021): we advocate that IRCC provide explicit, profession-specific information on credential recognition for economic-class immigrants. In addition, federal immigration authorities should work with municipal-level authorities to address gatekeeping with individual hiring managers (for a policy-ready idea, see Long et al. 2024, for an activity related to a municipal credential recognition programme with defined stakeholders). Disaggregated data analysis and standardized race-based data collection must be integrated across federal and provincial governments and published to encourage accountability for equity policies and practices. Participants across our data collection methodologies identified that small and medium-sized businesses lack Equity, Diversity and Inclusion infrastructure and resources. Accessible, low-barrier tools for evaluating foreign credentials, work experience, and religious accommodation are urgent areas to address.

Our participants advocated for more of the following: (a) French-language settlement and employment services in Anglophone municipalities, which have the potential to address intersectional anti-Black racism in Edmonton; (b) funding for career bridging and mentorship programmes; and (c) outreach services for immigrants not currently connected to settlement services who are likely experiencing the most severe barriers.

Future research could examine employer decision-making around hiring and promotion, including so-called neutral criteria such as “Canadian experience.” Further, a longitudinal study exploring racialized immigrants’ employment trajectories over 5 to 10 years could test whether the barriers we identified above persist or are specific to a particular moment in time. Finally, we believe a comparative study across Canadian mid-sized cities would afford a deeper understanding of whether Edmonton’s dynamics are city-specific or nationally representative.