Occupational Stress, Mental Health and Satisfaction in the Canadian Multicultural Workplace

Workplaces are becoming increasingly multicultural and therefore, include a large variety of employees from more than one ethnicity, nationality, religious and/or cultural background. In the context of this new global economy, Canadian workplace structure and composition has also permanently changed. Consequently, the primary purpose of this project was to explore occupational stress, mental health and satisfaction (life, job, relationship) as experienced by immigrant individuals attempting to achieve integration into Canadian workplaces. In order to address this research aim, responses of Canadian born participants (N = 42) were compared to those of non-Canadian born participants (N = 42) with respect to a series of questionnaires addressing the variables of interest. Our results suggested that, with the exception of self-reported symptoms of somatization and paranoia, non-Canadian born workers in the fields of education, healthcare and/or social work report more similarities than differences when compared to the responses of Canadian born workers. In general, the findings of this study suggested positive outcomes for non-Canadian born professionals who immigrate into Canada under the economic category.