SaskatchewanThe Regina Open Door Society held a job fair for new Canadians on Wednesday. The 67 applicants had been pre-screened for the nine companies that attended, ensuring that their skills matched the jobs being offered.Language, other barriers make finding a job especially challenging for newcomersLori Coolican · CBC News · Posted: Sep 25, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 7 hours agoTracy Kirychuk and Peter Wol at Regina’s second Refugee Hiring Event on Sept. 24, 2025. (Will Draper/CBC)When Peter Wol came to Canada from South Sudan in 2000, driven out by civil war, he saw a world of possibilities in front of him.”It was very amazing. It was new for me, and everything was easy for me after,” he recalls. “I tried a lot of jobs.”He spent the next 20 years with various employers, including working at a meat plant, a warehouse and doing janitorial work.Wol returned to South Sudan during the COVID-19 pandemic, then returned to Canada and found himself facing a “way different” situation: part-time positions seem to be all he can get.Wol was among the 67 job-seekers selected through a pre-screening process to attend a refugee hiring event in Regina on Wednesday. “We have awesome refugees in Regina. I work with several of them. I know how determined they are to find jobs,” said Tracy Kirychuk, an employment facilitator at South Saskatchewan Independent Living Centre who served as a coach for applicants at the event.”I work with a gentleman who sees me every week, and he said he will until he finds a job. Just having that hope, having those good feelings that, yes, in a world where things are a little uneasy that they have hope that they will get a job and that Regina is a friendly city and that employers will take the time to hire them.”Nine local employers attended the event, and all say they’re serious about finding new staff this way, says Saima Shafi of the Regina Open Door Society, which convened the event for the second consecutive year with partner organizations.It’s unlike many other job fairs because employers come with “actual job openings, and the clients we have screened, their profile matches to those jobs and they have been prepared accordingly,” she said. “That makes this type of event more fruitful, with tangible results.”Organizers will follow up with the employer to measure the event’s success rate and look for ways to improve it.The Morning Edition – Sask6:03Communities in Regina come together to celebrate world refugee dayToday is World Refugee Day. The Regina Open Door Society hosted its celebration earlier this week. CBC’s Sarah Onyango takes us there.There’s a larger goal involved, Shafi says: Educating employers on the gains they can make by hiring refugees helps the provincial economy retain them rather than losing their productivity to other provinces.Neelu Sharma, director of Juzkidin, a non-profit early learning centre that’s getting ready to open in January, says the company intends to hire people it interviewed at the event.”Everybody deserves a chance, so we should all try considering giving a chance to refugees and immigrants. Because I’m an immigrant myself,” she says.”I came to Canada in 2009 and I started my job and then made my way up. If we give people the opportunity to learn and work, they flourish and they become part of the community.”ABOUT THE AUTHORLori Coolican has been a reporter and editor in Western Canada since 1996.With files from Sarah Onyango
Pre-screening helps refugee job seekers connect with Regina employers
