A/HRC/13/23/Add.2 by recent immigrants, but by workers of colour generally, including Canadian-born minorities more highly educated than average. Minorities stated their belief that foreign or Muslim sounding names or addresses in low-income neighbourhoods were also the basis for discriminatory rejection of employment applications. 43. Research by the Canadian Labour Congress in 2006 revealed large and consistent gaps in economic security for workers of colour compared to other comparably educated and skilled workers. The research concluded that discrimination is an important contributing factor to their poor labour market outcomes. About 33 per cent of racialized workers overall and 51 per cent of black workers (a sub-set of all racialized workers) experienced racial discrimination. Racialized workers are most likely to be in low-status, low-skill, or precarious jobs, accounting for 45 per cent of workers in sewing and textile industries, over 43 per cent of taxi drivers and 45 per cent of electronics assemblers. 44. Canadians of Arab origin are twice as likely to have a university or post-graduate degree, yet experience unemployment rates among the highest in Canada at 13 per cent. Equally, poverty among Arab and Muslim communities is disproportionately high, which many attribute to discrimination, exclusion and income inequality. These trends are replicated within certain Asian communities, including the Chinese community, where significantly higher than average educational attainment is not translated into average levels of skilled, high-income or executive employment and workplace mobility. Racialized persons reportedly make up only 3 per cent of executives.14 45. Unemployment (16.5 per cent) among Muslim women is more than double the rate (7.2 per cent) for all women, despite their significantly higher levels of graduate education and professional qualifications. They are concentrated in low-paying, low-skill occupations and earn on average $16,010, compared with $22,885 for all women.15 Muslim women described “triple jeopardy” – intersectional discrimination based upon their identities as Muslims, as women and as people of colour.16 For Arab, West Asian, South Asian and African women in Toronto, the unemployment rate is over twice that of white Canadian women. One in four workers in Ontario earns below the poverty line. This number is higher for women overall (31 per cent) and women of colour especially (38 per cent). 46. People of colour are underrepresented in public service employment. Following the enactment of the Employment Equity Act, the federal Government established the Perinbam Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service in 2000, to advise on measures to increase representation and propose an action plan. Its recommendations,17 endorsed by Parliament, set targets for hiring one visible minority in every five new hires by 2003 and the same ratio for executive promotions by 2005. Failure to implement these recommendations is reflected in an actual decline in 14 15 16 17 12 census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/tbt/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL =A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=837928&GK=0&GRP=1&PID=94183&PRID=0&PTYPE=88971, 97154&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2006&THEME=80&VID=0&VNAMEE= &VNAEF=. See Catalyst Canada and the Diversity Institute in Management and Technology at Ryerson University, “Career advancement in corporate Canada: A focus on visible minorities – an early preview”, p. 2 (Toronto, 2007), available from www.ryerson.ca/diversity/news/fulldocument.pdf. See Canadian Council of Muslim Women fact sheet No. 1, available from www.ccmw.com/ documents/FactSheet1.pdf. See Daood Hamdani, “Triple jeopardy: Muslim women’s experience of discrimination” (Canadian Council of Muslim Women, 2005), p. 6, available from www.ccmw.com/documents/ Triple_Jeopardy.pdf. Contained in the report Embracing Change in the Federal Public Service, available from www.tbssct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/TB_852/dwnld/ecfps-eng.pdf. GE.10-11860