Article content

The city of Montreal says it has taken the first step toward developing a strategy aimed at improving the integration of immigrants into the workforce.

On Monday, representatives from the city, province, employers and other groups met behind closed doors for discussions to “lay the first foundations” for this strategy.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Montreal to develop new workforce integration strategy for immigrants Back to video

Montreal attracts around three-quarters of immigrants to Quebec, but many new arrivals have a hard time finding work.

While the average unemployment rate in the Montreal region was 6.1 per cent in 2018, according to Statistics Canada, it was 7.5 per cent for landed immigrants — 11.9 per cent for those who arrived in the past five years and 6.5 per cent for those here more than 10 years. Both figures have declined recently but are still higher than the 5.3 per cent among Montrealers who were born in Canada.

For Frantz Saintellemy, the president of Groupe 3737, a business incubator in St-Michel that works with entrepreneurs from immigrant and visible minority communities, and one of the organizers of the event, integrating new arrivals into the workforce is not just an economic question, it’s also a question of dignity.