Statistics Canada’s economic & social report has revealed that there will be rapid employment growth for newcomers.
Moreover, along with this employment growth, new immigrants in Canada are now shrinking the employment gap between themselves & their Canadian peers, thus contributing disproportionately to Canadian innovation & business ownership.
Continued Improvement In Labor Market Outcomes For Canadian Immigrants
Since the early 2010s, immigrants in Canada have seen an upward trajectory in their labor market outcomes.
Recent immigrants aged 25-54 years old witnessed a growth of 10.7% in their employment rate between 2010 & 2023. Within the same time frame, the employment growth rate among Canadian-born workers was 4.1%.
Accordingly, the employment rate gap between these groups has dramatically decreased in the last ten years. In 2010, the gap in employment rates between the Canadian-born population & recent immigrants was 13.1%. Also, in 2023, this gap was only 6.5%, indicating that newcomers as a group are on track to outpace their Canadian-born peers in terms of finding & securing employment in Canada.
Further, unemployment rate disparities have also dropped when comparing the two groups. For recent immigrants in the studied age group, unemployment rates dropped from 12.1% in 2010 to 6.6% in 2023, thus reducing the gap in employment rates between recent immigrants & Canadian-born workers to just a 2.6% difference.
Immigrants also exhibited a faster recovery after the pandemic, where they experienced significant employment setbacks as a group, which were specifically noted among those employed in accommodation, food services & retail trade sectors. However, when comparing the gap in employment rate among Canadian-born workers & recent immigrants, this gap was lower than in 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Well, it indicated that employment growth among recent immigrants between 2020 & 2023 was especially strong.
Growing Immigration Participation In Patents & Investments
As there is rapid employment growth for newcomers, according to another study cited by the Economic & Social Report, immigrants were overrepresented among patent filers in Canada – contributing more than one-third of all patents despite only making up a fourth of the Canadian population.
Along with this, the study also noted increased immigration participation among investors in Canada, indicating yet another way that newcomers are contributing to Canadian business & innovation. In 2019, immigrant men made up 34.2% of investors in Canada, while immigrant women were 44.3% of investors in the same year. Again, considering that immigration only makes up around 25% of the Canadian population, it becomes clear that this group disproportionately contributes to the national profile of innovation & business in the country.
Why This Might Be The Case?
The study points to a few key changes in the immigration landscape in Canada that could provide explanations as to why immigrants in the country are continuing to do so well.
The first is the rise in immigration applicants who previously held work permits in Canada. Data cited reveals that in 2022, over 36% of all new immigrants granted Canada PR in Canada had held a work permit before immigration. This trend has been steadily increasing, with 19% of immigrants holding work permits before immigration in 2010 & 33% in 2019. Moreover, there is extensive literature to address that those with prior work experience in Canada tend to have better immigration outcomes than those who have better immigration outcomes than those who have not had this experience.
The second reason for rapid employment growth for new immigrants is the introduction of the Express Entry management system, which uses CRS to assess applicants & choose new economic immigrants. The CRS greatly favors Canadian work experience, but also other human capital factors have corresponded to have better labor market outcomes in Canada – like official language proficiency & education. The introduction of this system has greatly helped Canada select economic immigrants who are likely to perform well in the labor market.