Canada sees super performance by immigrants, study says

Studies show that immigrants are giving better outcomes in the Canadian labor market. They are even known to perform better than native Canadians.

There are certain reasons easily identified for the excellent performance of immigrants who work in Canada. These include:

• They are younger on the average
• They are more educated than natives

The study was made in a systematic manner based on factors such as:

• hourly wages
• employment rate
• participation rate
• unemployment rate

The groups of people who were studied were categorized into 3:

• Citizens born in Canada
• Immigrants who came recently in Canada with 5 to 10 years in the country
• Very recent immigrants who had been in Canada for less than 5 years

The data was collected from the Statistics Canada Labor Force Study in the period between 2006 and 2019. Centre for the Study of Living Standards published the findings.

The main findings were as follows:

• Despite higher employment and participation rates, the wage gap and unemployment rates were prevalent for immigrants.
• The participation and employment rates of immigrants were found higher than workers born in Canada by the end of the 13-year period from 2006 to 2019.
• By 2019, participation rates of immigrants crossed that of those born in Canada by 4.5% for very recent immigrants. The same was 10.0% for recent immigrants.
• The rates of employment of very recent immigrants crossed the rate of workers born in Canada by 1.5%. The same for recent immigrants surpassed them by 8.7%.
• Unemployment rates had gone down for immigrants though they were still higher than workers born in Canada. By 2019 the unemployment rates of both recent immigrants and very recent ones were higher than the rate of those born in Canada by 1.0% and 4.0%, respectively.
• Wages adjusted for the cost of living for very recent immigrants increased. But they were still making between $2.87 and $4.32 per hour. This was lesser than what Canada-born workers made.

The improvement in immigrants’ performance can be attributed to the following reasons:

• more immigrants were university degree holders
• Immigrants may have benefitted more than Canada-born workers from the strong labor market that emerged in the late 2010s
• federal and provincial immigration Canada programs focusing on immigrant workers possibly helped labor performance
• support services could have improved labor market integration
• recognition of foreign credential could have improved
• Improved labor market information may have helped immigrants better to get ready for the Canadian job market

The challenges faced by immigrant workers when it comes to improving their gains are:

• Challenges of language barriers, smaller social networks, and discrimination
• Jobs mismatching due to which those educated in certain a field of work are in jobs unrelated to their expertise

If you are looking to Study, Work, Visit, Invest or Migrate to Canada, talk to Y-Axis, the World’s No.1 Immigration & Visa Company.

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