Diversity Works Report Released on experiences of BIPOC-D Job Seekers

With funding from Economic and Social Development Canada, Case Canada partnered with CCBR to conduct a study of the experiences of BIPOC who experience disability (BIPOC-D) job seekers at all stages of the employment journey. Here are 10 key findings from that research:

1. BIPOC-D job seekers want an expansive and fluid definition of disability, one that confronts disability as a colonial construct and facilitates a more flexible and empowering understanding of disability.

2. BIPOC-D job seekers are juggling precarious work, including multiple or part-time jobs that do not match their education, credentials, or potential.

3. BIPOC-D job seekers are managing microaggressions, daily, coded manifestations of racism and/or ableism.

4. Immigrant job seekers who experience disability are de-professionalized by companies and institutions that devalue the education and skills they obtained outside of Canada. This exclusion is amplified by ableist temporary agencies that push them into low wage work.

5. Anti-Black racism jeopardizes the professional relationships and dreams of Black job seekers who experience disability, many of whom want to work in places where they can be supported by other Black colleagues.

6. The ongoing challenges of colonialism are preventing Inuit job seekers who experience disability from building communities of care. Inuit participants are advocating for a return to more community-based, decolonized approaches to disability support.

7. BIPOC-D job seekers engage in multiple, intersectional strategies to overcome racism and ableism, including code-switching, strategic disclosure, and acts of microresistance.

8. Employers invested in Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) are focused on recruitment and less committed to retention and promotion

9. BIPOC-D job seekers face multiple structural barriers that diminish their access to supported employment services.

10. Assessments of Supported Employment Services (SES) are positive overall but there is room to improve support for BIPOC-D job seekers.

For more information download the Full final report: Diversity Works An Exploration of the Employment Journeys of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour Who Experience Disability

For more information on the Diversity Works project, including copies of an executive summary and round table summary report, see here.

Special thanks to CCBR researchers Ruth Wilson, Kinavuidi Fernando, Maneesa Veeravel, and Veen Wong for their work on this project!