The Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative (TIEDI) seeks to assist organizations whose mandate includes the better integration of immigrants into Toronto's labour force. Such partner organizations include immigrant service agencies and advocacy groups, employer associations, regulatory bodies, professional associations, training organizations, labour organizations, and credential assessment agencies. The purpose of the project is to provide such organizations with free access to statistical data and analysis on various aspects of immigrant labour market integration. The goal is to help organizations access the quantitative data they need in order to: identify priorities, develop programs and services, compose proposals and reports, and carrying out advocacy and public education endeavours.

TIEDI provides a unique service in which community organizations' data needs are met by a team of academic researchers and student analysts. Our partners define the data that they need - the project is thus driven by their agendas and not by academic research priorities. The datasets used by the project include a wide range of large-scale surveys such as the Census, the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, the Ethnic Diversity Survey, the Workplace and Employee Survey, the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, and the Labour Force Survey.

TIEDI is based at York University, with a team of academic researchers drawn from York, the University of Toronto, and Ryerson University. Core members of the project team also include representatives of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) and World Education Services.

TIEDI is funded by the Knowledge Impact in Society program of Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and by York University. The project was initiated in June 2008 and will run until 2012.

TIEDI invites those organizations with a mandate to assist immigrants in the Toronto labour market to join us as a partner and use our services.

New!  TIEDI Public Outreach Project!

Since 2008, TIEDI has produced 26 analytical reports, 34 fact sheets and 15 monthly labour force updates about the current labour market outcomes of immigrants in Toronto CMA. These findings are free for everyone to download on-line from our website and are distributed to over 600+ members.

In March 2011, the TIEDI project received additional funding from the SSHRC Public Outreach program. The purpose of the Public Outreach Grant (POG) is to complete the research and dissemination cycle initiated of TIEDI by identifying the policy and practical implications of TIEDI. Through this project, partners and stakeholders will be engaged to identify policy questions and develop recommendations that emerge from the research. The public outreach project will develop and disseminate these recommendations through three different mechanisms: a) innovation fora to frame policy questions arising from initial research findings; b) a series of community consultation workshops to engage target audiences who will discuss policy questions arising from specific findings and their implications for practice and policy-making; c) the development and publication of refined and synthesized policy recommendations.

Furthermore, this project will disseminate the TIEDI model of community-driven, data-based and policy-relevant research to other significant immigrant communities across Canada. More specifically, the TIEDI model will be introduced to community groups, academics and policy-makers working with immigrant organizations in Montreal, Halifax, Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa in conference presentations (e.g. Metropolis 2012) and social media. The research team will also work closely with Metropolis centres across the country to advise them on best practices and innovations developed during the TIEDI project and public outreach activities.

By mobilizing knowledge of what we have learned from TIEDI to other urban centres, this project will create opportunities for employers, immigrant service organizations, labour organizations, policy-makers and regulators to reflect on the implications of recent analyses about the labour market integration of immigrants and ultimately enhance their decision-making processes and further their goals of creating lasting change in programs and practices in relation to immigrant recruitment, retraining and retention in the labour market.