Canada, as well as the rest of the world, is facing uncertain times. However, Canada recognizes that the influx of immigrants in Canada are believed to contribute to higher employment rates in Canada.
Canadian immigration has always been linked to economics and political moves. It is well known that the global pandemic related to COVID-19 has impacted the Canadian labour market big time and that our leaders have made important decision to keep us all safe. Lots of local workers have been laid off and will have access to economic emergency programs in order to aid them through these tough times, but despite this current situation, immigrants are very important for the system to keep working.
According to Statistics Canada, higher employment rates for immigrants are evident in Western Canada. Manitoba had the highest employment rate for immigrants with 83.1 per cent in 2017 compared with 83.9 per cent for Canadian-born. Alberta’s rate of employment started to trend downwards in 2014 for both immigrants and Canadian-born due to falling oil prices which is the main driver of the province’s economy. However, the employment rate for immigrants in Alberta was the third highest in the country at 79.8 per cent and British Columbia falls on the second highest at 80.1 per cent.
The increase of employment rate in Canada was also driven by the country’s strong stand on job-creation, which further urges and encourages companies to hire more people. Correspondingly, the performance of newcomers was better than the last recession, which was over a decade ago with a growing labour-force participation and decreasing unemployment rates for newcomers.
There is also a high percentage of working immigrants who are more highly educated and has better earning prospects. According to Statistics Canada, 83.4 per cent of the immigrant labour force in Canada has attained university degrees and 83.5 with post-secondary certificate or diplomas.
Higher employment rates and labour participation of immigrants’ signals and drives a demand for goods and services that further contributes to Canada’s economic growth. Therefore, Canada is striving to maintain a positive attitude towards immigration.
Immigrants are a very important part of the workforce in the Canadian economy, and as such, immigrants are appreciated and expected to keep this country in place once everything gets back to normal, whatever our new normal will be.
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