09/22/2026
Thank you very much to the team at Emanuele Furniture Design for your warm welcome! We recently joined our partners at IOM - UN Migration to visit Ked El-Dassouki, Owner, and Mulham Alkhalil, CNC Machinist, at this leading production facility in Ontario.
Emanuele Furniture Design is among many manufacturers across Canada facing a critical shortage of tradespeople, unable to find enough folks with the needed training or experience locally. A few years ago, the team partnered with TalentLift to find internationally-trained professionals to fill Cabinetmaker and CNC Machinist roles. Through partnership with TalentLift, Emanuele Furniture Design could find needed skilled workers while extending a job opportunity to someone living in a refugee situation. For displaced workers, a job opportunity in Canada is a pathway out of displacement for them and their family, and the chance to continue their career in safety.
Mulham is a talented carpenter originally from Syria, and was living as a refugee when he got his job offer with Emanuele Furniture Design. Four years later, he's a valued member of the team and recently celebrated his Canadian citizenship 🍁
We're grateful to work with forward-thinking teams like Emanuele Furniture Design who are recognizing this immense talent pool, and providing people with a chance to put their skills to use and reach their full potential in a safe new home. It's a powerful and win-win solution providing companies with talent and job candidates with transformative opportunities.
Join us in making more of these journeys possible. Together with IOM Lebanon and with funding from the European Union, we're connecting Canadian employers with the talent pool of Syrians living displaced in Lebanon. About 1 in 5 people in Lebanon is living there as a refugee, including more than 1 million Syrians who are unable to permanently return to Syria due to shifting security. They are building their skills and experience in Lebanon, but face low pay, few rights, and no way to build a future there. These job seekers are eager to meet their potential and relocate to companies and communities in need of their skills. There is a much wider, global talent pool that our teams are supporting too, and we invite any employer with a vacancy to partner with us to catalyze many more opportunities for displaced individuals worldwide.
If you have persistent vacancies in the trades or beyond, we want to hear from you: https://www.talentlift.ca/iom
European Union in Lebanon
