LMI News and Reports:
According to the latest 2007 Vital Signs report, which has compiled information from Statistics Canada in conjunction with other sources, not everyone, especially newcomers, share in the country’s prosperity. The Toronto Community Foundation, which pioneered the Vital Signs project, has said that while governments have taken small steps in the right direction to help integrate newcomers and recognize their foreign credentials, more needs to be done.
The president of the University of Victoria, David Turpin, commented on some of the findings of the Victoria Vital Signs report, which was compiled by the Victoria Foundation. While the report mentioned that unemployment is at an all-time low, “the changing demographics raise concerns about finding employees in some sectors” said Dr. Turpin. He wants to see more research done in the city’s main demographic issue: a generally aging population coupled with a predicted decline in the number of young adults. As the number of immigrants to the country increases, this will further contribute to the changing demographic landscape.
According to Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer, RBC, “Canada’s future economic growth and competitiveness will depend on how quickly and effectively we can integrate immigrants into our workplaces and our communities… Effective immigration, integration and inclusion policies, plus employment practices focused on diverse talent, will be critical in confronting labour shortages and sustaining economic growth. The stakes are higher than ever before.”
Recent Update
According to a recent study on Canada’s Immigrant Labour Market, recent immigrants (those who have been in Canada five years or less) have had the most difficulty integrating into the Canadian labour market, despite the fact that their levels of education were higher than their Canadian-born counterparts. In 2006, the national unemployment rate for recent immigrants was 11.5%, more than double the rate for the Canadian-born population. For those immigrants who had been in Canada between 5 and 10 years, the unemployment rate was 7.3%. Many newcomers need time to adjust to their new life in Canada, and to break into the workforce, regardless of their level of education.
Immigrants to Alberta have benefited most from the labour demand, with a 5.8% unemployment rate among recent immigrants. Conversely, immigrants in Quebec have experienced significantly higher rates of unemployment, regardless of how long they had been in Canada.
Recent female immigrants experienced unemployment rates of 19.9%, which is twice the rate for Canadian-born women.
Finally, immigrants were also more likely to work in manufacturing, professional, scientific and technical services, accommodation, and food services, than their Canadian-born counterparts. Among Canadian-born workers, the biggest employer in 2006 was retail and wholesale trade. However, this was also the second largest employer of immigrants, regardless of time since arriving in Canada. New immigrants who landed after 2001 were more likely to be working in sales and service jobs, and were also more likely to have jobs in the natural and applied sciences than their Canadian-born counterparts.
In General:
Population trends have significant implications for the labour market. Canada’s population is expected to reach 33.2 million by 2010. Significantly, the dominant source of population growth through 2010 will be immigration (68%).
According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), 70% of new entrants into the labour force are immigrants, and by 2011, 100% will be from this group.
Between 2001 and 2006, immigrants made up the vast majority of the 1.6 million new Canadians. Immigrants accounted for 1.2 million, while there were only 400,000 native-born Canadians.
In 2006, British Columbia welcomed 42,208 new immigrants – its second highest level of immigration since 1998, and the third largest share of immigrants to Canada.
In British Columbia, given that the population of the province is not self-sustaining (i.e. the fertility rate is below replacement levels), many workers are nearing retirement age, and there is a projected decline in the growth of the working age group, immigration is a very important issue
The immigrant labour force in Victoria represents 17.7% of the city’s total labour force. Additionally, net immigration accounted for 35% of the city’s labour force growth between 1991 and 2001.
Employers in Victoria will increasingly need to take action in order to tap into the pool of immigrant workers who possess the skill sets required in British Columbia.
One key challenge is that many skilled immigrants are having difficulty finding jobs. Research indicates that immigrants have a much higher unemployment rate than the non-immigrant population, especially within the first five years of entering the country.
