World Skills is a non-profit employment centre dedicated exclusively to the employment needs of newcomers and to the needs of the local labour market. They help immigrants incorporate into the workforce through employment competency building, job search training and support, cultural competency building and language training.

Visit World Skills CPRNW project page

Vision:

An inclusive Canada that values the skills and talents of new Canadians.

Mission:

World Skills aims to enhance the economic integration of immigrants, refugees and newcomers by: developing and offering programs and services that assist them in increasing their employability in the Canadian job market; and creating employment opportunities for them through increasing public awareness of their employability and by forming partnerships with employers in the Ottawa region.

For more than 20 years, World Skills Employment Centre has worked with over 30,000 visible minority women in supporting them to access the labour market. Our local services include Pre-Employment programs, Workplace Language Training, Employer Engagement Initiatives, Bridge Training programs, Entrepreneurship training and Cross-Cultural Training Workshops for employers and newcomers.

World Skills Employment Centre is piloting two different models: Model 2: Navigating the Canadian Labour Market and Model 3: Partnering in Workforce Innovation. The project will engage 900-1000 visible minority newcomer women. Approximately half of these women will receive direct support from the project. The remaining 500 will make up a comparison group (one for model 2 and one for model 3) who will be encouraged to access other services offered by World Skills Employment Centre. Clients in Model 2 will engage in 10 days of in-class workshops with a focus on portfolio development and essential skills training. Those in Model 3 will participate in 10 days of in-class workshops, a self-leadership workshop series, mentorship through a circle of champions, targeted recruitment events, and employment matching by a recruitment specialist.

Since the two model interventions only differ in their pre-employment preparation activities, both models are essentially testing the same key features. Therefore, it is also possible to pool the data of the two models, while taking into account differences in participants’ language levels between the two, and estimate the impacts of both of World Skills’ interventions jointly.