Local businesses express interest in immigrants as workforce source

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This article was published 26/03/2016 (3481 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Albert El Tassi knows he was one of the lucky ones.

Thanks to his brother, the now-president and CEO of Peerless Garments already had a job lined up for him when he immigrated to Winnipeg from Lebanon in 1969. It was loading trucks in the shipping department at Peerless, where his brother worked as a presser.

While it was a far cry from the teaching job El Tassi had in Lebanon, it was a start. Besides, he only planned to stay about a year, when he hoped to have enough money saved up to go to university.

As it turned out, a year passed and he never did leave. He started working his way up in the company, and by 2003 he was running the show.

But while his transition to a new life in Canada was a relatively smooth one, El Tassi knows that’s not the case for many other immigrants. That’s one of the reasons he’s now offering sewing-machine operator jobs to some of the recently arrived refugees from Syria. That and a deeply held belief in the importance of helping those in need.

“I don’t want to turn this into a religious sermon, but we were put on this earth for one reason — to help others,” he explained in an interview. “So I do a lot of things in the community… because I like helping people.”

Because there is a shortage of sewing-machine operators in Winnipeg right now — and across the country for that matter — the specialty clothing manufacturer has more than 20 positions it would like to fill. There is even a local non-profit group that operates a training centre on the second floor of Peerless’s Notre Dame Avenue factory that can teach immigrants the necessary sewing skills.

Peerless Garments is one of several local employers that have expressed an interest in hiring Syrian refugees. Another is Winnipeg businessman Munther Zeid, whose family owns and operates five Food Fare grocery stores in the city.

“We could probably take six or eight people,” Zeid said in an interview, adding the kinds of jobs he’s looking to fill include stockers and produce clerks. Although they aren’t high-paying positions, they’re a start, he said.

While being able to speak English would be helpful, Zeid said it’s not a deal-breaker for him because he’s hired workers who had language or communication issues.

“As long as they are put in an environment where they are sort of forced to learn, they will learn fast.”

The non-profit Immigrant Centre is one of the local agencies offering employment services to the nearly 1,000 Syrian refugees who have arrived in Manitoba since the beginning of November 2015. Upon hearing about Zeid’s and El Tassi’s offer, the agency’s employment manager said she would be contacting both.

“I haven’t had a huge amount of employers contacting me specifically about helping out the Syrians,” Amie Membreno said in an interview, although she noted she was approached Thursday by another local garment manufacturer — Igloo Wear — which is also looking for sewing-machine operators and embroiderers for its fledgeling business.

Membreno said it’s only been in the last couple of weeks that some of the Syrian refugees the Immigration Centre has been helping have progressed to the point where they’re ready to enter the workforce. Most had limited English-language skills when they arrived and are still attending language classes.

But eight of them are ready, she added, although only one has found a job so far.

Membreno noted this is usually the time of year when the job market starts heating up, so the centre is hoping to see an influx of openings over the next few months.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca