Visible Minorities

It has been observed that individuals from visible-minority groups often lack access to different types of information. These barriers can include:

• Lack of familiarity with the trades (CFLDB, 1995; )
• Lack of access to information about apprenticeship training requirements, employability and labour-market information (Gordon, 2002; CCMA, 2003)
• Lack of information about laddering programs to assist youth from under-represented groups ()
• The makeup of career and guidance counsellors does not reflect the diversity of the population; barriers faced by visible-minority groups, therefore, are not always well understood by counselors and key information providers (CLFDB, 1995)

As a result of patterns of economic and social exclusion, members of certain minority groups lack access to family and social networks they perceive represent an entry point into apprenticeship and the trades for other Canadians (). In trades where minority groups have been traditionally underrepresented, new apprentices may lack a network of contacts within the system, and are therefore excluded from the social channels that enable them to gain exposure to the trades and find employers willing to act as apprenticeship sponsors (CLFDB, 1995; ). More overtly, it is perceived that the existence of strong family networks is often conducive to hiring opportunities. This barrier only helps reinforce the exclusion of groups that do not have access to such networks ().

Recent Immigrants

The inadequacy of career counselling and information about the trades and technical training opportunities, while already a problem for most youth, exacerbates many of the additional barriers faced by immigrant youth (Jothen, 2002; CLFDB, 1995).

This problem has many dimensions. It is clear that immigrant parents, as well as their children, lack information about the skilled trades and opportunities to train to become skilled trades-persons (). This barrier may serve to reinforce biases within some immigrant families against non-university educational choices and career orientations (Jothen, 2002; ). At the same time, in some cases there is strong parental support for better career counselling related to the trades (Jothen, 2002). This attitude may reflect the fact that trades and apprenticeship are not consistently and actively promoted to immigrant communities ().

Some school counsellors and immigrant-service agencies, however, play an active role in providing students with the required information or point them in the right direction. These efforts, however, may again be underserved by the quality of targeted information immigrants or the children of recent immigrants receive ().

Recent immigrants may also have difficulty accessing other types of information, which may be a result of their relative inexperience with apprenticeship training and employment systems in Canada. These types of barriers include:

• A lack of information about government or regulatory issues, in particular Employment Insurance (EI) and related provisions that affect apprentices ()
• Information about the duration and requirements of apprenticeship programs ()
• Difficulty in navigating bureaucracies and dealing with paperwork ()
• A lack of information about foreign-credentials recognition services and resources ()