Better utilization of immigrants in Canadian labor force needed
By saloni | Fri, 03/13/2009 - 23:02
More than 200,000 immigrants move to Canada every year. Many of these immigrants head towards Canada in search of economic opportunity that will change their lives. But are these opportunities really waiting for them? Sadly, when we talk of immigrants’ success, we initially talk of an engineer from India driving cab in Canada, or a Chinese surgeon unable to get credentials. Analysis of a 2006 data that was released recently showed that educated immigrants are underemployed in the labor force of Canada.
On an average, the recent immigrants to Canada are better educated than the native-born Canadians but unfortunately for them, they are well below these less educated people in the job market. Take a look at this- only 15.8 percent of native-born Canadians had acquired bachelor’s degree or higher in 2006, compared to 25.4 percent immigrants who had degree. But in spite of this difference, the total average income of a native-born Canadian is $64,239 and that of immigrants is just $48,488. In addition to this, the underemployment of immigrants in Canada was 6.6 percent and that of native-born Canadians was almost half that of immigrants at 3.5 percent.
After analyzing the issue very carefully, it is known that the newest immigrants are the ones facing the most job market constraints. The rates of underemployment of immigrant population vary with their arrival group.
The commitment of Canada to open immigration is really worth praising but the analysis shows that the country is unable to fully utilize the talent of new immigrants. If Canadian jurisdiction wants to make the most of the creative potential of citizens, minimizing the considerable achievement gap is mandatory. Maximizing the talent of immigrants will not only enhance the income and productivity of the country, but it will also make Canada even more attractive to next generation immigrants.
Let us discuss some of the things needed to be done by the jurisdictions if they want to integrate immigrants more effectively-
1. Expand Employment Opportunity Driven Programs as it will push immigrants to migrate to smaller communities which they otherwise don’t prefer. This would suffice the very high demands for labor in certain sectors.
2. In order to encourage immigrants to move to places where population of immigrants are less and where labor effects may be more beneficial, government should expand immigrant settlement services to places outside gateway cities of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
3. Make even more effort to certify the credentials of immigrants who are well qualified and enhance the skills of other immigrants.
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