Immigrants trapped in the web of low-paying jobs

Canada, February 24: A large number of immigrants having professional and university education are compelled to take part-time, low-paying and temporary jobs that are different from their selected fields, a recent study shows.

Human potential of professional immigrants gets wasted every day. Nearly hundreds of immigrants including doctors, advocates, professors and so on are seen doing jobs in Canada for which they are much overqualified. 

The reason for taking up of low-paying and part-time jobs is the inability to find work in accordance with their selected field. And once they find they won’t be able to land up a decent job, they go on to work as cabbies or even at different stores. 

There are many doctors and lawyers working as taxi drivers, says a head of an employment mentors’ program at Abbotsford Community Services for professional immigrants, Pat Christie.

Finding a job in accordance with their qualifications and work experience is one of the biggest hurdle and greatest concerns for immigrants from various parts of the world, adds Christie about her clients who are experienced and professionally qualified newcomers. 

A report by Statistics Canada (in November 2009) found vast differences in the employment scenario between Canadian natives and immigrants. It was revealed that newcomers in Canada were getting far lower wage rates while the number of over-qualified, temporary unemployed and part-time workers was significantly high. 

Less wage rate for Canadian immigrants--Probability of immigrants (possessing university degrees) being overqualified for their Canada jobs was nearly 1.5 times. The findings of the study unveils that the hourly wage rate of immigrants in Canada holding a university degree, at $25.31 an hour, was $5 less than the hourly wage rate earned by their Canadian-born colleagues. Most of these immigrants belong to the age group of 25-54 years.

41 percent of immigrants in Canada on part-time jobs--While 30 percent of Canadian-born workers took up part-time employment in the country; it was 41 percent for the immigrant workers in Canada, the figures of the last five years reveal. 

Despite several efforts by the Canadian immigration department to focus more on improving selection and recruitment of immigrants possessing relevant skills, education, work experience and fluency in local language, there has been no significant achievement in terms of Canadian jobs for the immigrants, Christie admitted. 

To help professional immigrants in Canada connect with their Canadian counterparts, the Employment Mentor Program at ACS serves nearly 80 clients from 60 different nations.