Participants Newcomers, Immigrants, and Refugees

Alberta digital employment training

The 54 member agencies of the Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies (AAISA) boost the employability of newcomers to Alberta, to address unemployment within this demographic and support Alberta’s labour needs. They offer courses on workplace, language, and communication skills that help advance newcomers’ ability to integrate into a Canadian work environment.

Acknowledging differences in the quality of services accessible in urban centers versus more rural areas and in light of disruptions to in-person learning caused by the COVID pandemic, the AAISA aimed to make lasting improvements to services available to under-served parts of the province.

The one-year project tested digital infrastructure for delivering professional development/employment training content through e-learning courses. The project created space for AAISA to, in the future, test whether digital delivery of key programs and services helps AAISA members serve a broader client population and how the sector can build digital literacy among the staff of member agencies to implement the online tool.

Young student using a laptop and taking notes in a library.

The project found it is possible to transform the immigrant-serving sector’s employment programming courses and modules into digital formats and digitizing programming through AAISA was more cost-effective for participating organizations than doing it on their own, as it saved each organization roughly $36,000.

There is strong interest across AAISA’s member agencies for digitization: 34 agencies (60%) indicated interest in digitizing their employment programming.