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In this episode, I’m speaking with Imole Ashogbon, a fractional HR consultant who helps small and mid-sized businesses, executives, and HR teams when they need senior-level HR leadership, without the cost of a full-time executive.
Imole and I explore a nagging question I have about Canada’s much-talked about productivity decline: Are we declining in productivity because we lack talent OR because our broken systems aren’t able to take advantage of all the talent we have seating around in Canada?
Imole thinks we’ve created a strange contradiction. We bring in immigrants through Express Entry (a competitive immigration pathway meant to attract young, educated, upwardly mobile individuals.) Then we act like we’re doing them a favor. Like immigration is charity work. It’s not.
45% of recent immigrants have university degrees but work in jobs that don’t require post-secondary education. Which is an absurd waste of talent in my opinion.
Imole and I chat about:
Why businesses need to culturally integrate just as much as immigrants
Why immigration is investment, not aid
How to build systems that actually deploy immigrant talent
The misalignment between immigration policy, employment strategy, and economic growth targets
Dozie’s Notes
A few things that stuck with me as I listened through this week’s conversation:
The narrative we tell shapes everything. When immigration gets framed as charity instead of as a source of economic growth, it’s not difficult to see why we find ourselves in the situation where immigrants become the scapegoats for every systemic failure. And we end up avoiding the harder conversations. Our systems weren’t built to absorb the population growth it’s currently facing.
Integration goes both ways. Immigrants need to integrate; learn the culture, figure out the norms. Fair. But businesses need to integrate too. In a country where 23% of the population is foreign-born, businesses need to also do the work of cultural integration.
Canada needs to think 10 years out, not one quarter ahead. Immigration should tie to where Canada wants to be in a decade. What sectors need people? What skills matter? Then build the pathways backward from that vision.
Official Links
✅ Connect with Imole Ashogbon on LinkedIn
✅ Subscribe to Imole’s Fieldnote newsletter
One Ask
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