Physicists driving cabs

Quick, what's the most ethnically diverse city in the world?

It's not New York. It's not London. It's not Melbourne (though like Melbourne it's rather flat).

It's Toronto. Allegedly. I say allegedly because I find it hard to believe that NY and London aren't ahead on that score, they're both much bigger after all. But there it is, Toronto is the world's most ethnically diverse city. Really.

Half the population wasn't born in Canada and more than 150 languages are spoken every day. But to me that's not the mind-boggling statistic. This is: 100-thousand immigrants arrive there every year. Australia's total immigration is 150-thousand a year.

Traditionally immigrant groups arrive, cop a bit of prejudice from those already there, put their heads down, work like Trojans, and send their kids to university. It's not easy, it's bloody hard, but they benefit and the countries they arrive in - Australia, Canada, USA - benefit even more. But that system is breaking down, these days everything needs to happen faster.

In Toronto, they've done the research. The region is heading for a labour market growth of zero without immigration. They have big impending and current skills shortages. Everybody needs professionals (not lawyers obviously but teachers, engineers, doctors and accountants) and Toronto is no different, but it also needs sheet metal workers, an occupation with an average age in the 50s.

So the city has 100-thousand new arrivals from outside Canada every year and genuine problems in its labour market. This means too many proverbial physicists driving cabs, and indeed there is a bit of that. Except the Torontonians have started squaring the circle - they set up an organisation aimed at getting immigrants into work. It's called TRIEC, short for Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, and much easier to say quickly. It doesn't deliver services, it works like a broker, or convenor - essentially it gets people together. This modest approach turns out to be very effective.

TRIEC is still fairly new. It has a smallish intern program, which has an 85% success rate in getting people into work. It has a larger mentor program that generates similarly impressive results. It has a website that encourages the employment of immigrants. It has begun addressing the culture by engaging with the region's business schools and HR professionals. It has done all this in a bit over four years and it isn't really a branch of government. Instead TRIEC was created after the stakeholders of Toronto had a good, hard look at their city and the future it was likely to face.

The burghers of Toronto have been proactive, thoughtful and practical. They haven't solved their problems yet - TRIEC's ultimate aim is to go out of business - but they have made an impressive start. Good on them.