Calgary coffee shop owner Rahim Merali hired Syrian refugees because he wants to help them get started here. But like many business owners taking on Syrian employees, his motivation is not entirely philanthropic – he’s also looking to find hard-working employees in a sector with high turnover.
“Everyone has to start somewhere – these Syrians came here with almost nothing and they be need to be able to earn money to survive,” said Mr. Merali, who owns two Good Earth coffee houses. “But it’s also very tough to find good people – people who have loyalty, a good hard work ethic and actually want to be here.”
Mr. Merali hired Syrian workers through an immigrant youth-employment program run by the Calgary Catholic Immigration Services.
“We didn’t go in there and say, ‘Give me Syrians’ or ‘Give me Koreans’ or ‘Give me Filipinos’ – we just go in and do interviews,” Mr. Merali said. “The main reason why we originally went there was because we had a void after a bunch of staff left to go back to school or go onto other jobs.”
Ismailimail 