New immigrants face lower quality of employment

Canada, November 24: Believe it or not. But the truth is that there is a wide gap between the quality of employment for the newcomers as compared to the settled immigrants and native Canadians. 

This has been revealed by the latest report of the Statistics Canada. Titled ‘The 2008 Canadian Immigration Labor Market: Analysis of Quality of Employment’, the report throws light on various aspects of employment and job scenario including job stability, working hours, job satisfaction, safety at work, financial and non-financial remuneration and skills development.

New immigrants working in Canada not only have to spend more hours on their job but they also remain underpaid, roughly $2.28 an hour less than the settled immigrants or the native Canadians. One can find a larger percentage of new immigrants employed in temporary and involuntary part-time jobs.

In 2008, the hourly average wage of a native Canadian-born was $23.72 as compared to the immigrant worker’s hourly average wage of $21.44. Also, the average weekly hours spent by immigrants in their job amounted to 38.3 hours while the native Canadians spent nearly 38.1 hours on an average in a week.

It is not just the newcomers who face such differences, even the established immigrants fare no better. As per the report, in contrast with the native-born Canadians, newcomers and established immigrant workers are provided less union coverage.

Moreover, newcomers are 1.5 times over-qualified for their jobs as compared to the native Canadians. This is particularly true for university-degree holders who had arrived in Canada within the last five years.

Out of the total new immigrants who have immigrated to Canada in the last five years, nearly two-thirds are working at jobs which are far below their education levels and the experience. In 2008, the percentage of immigrant workers who were over-qualified for the job was 42 as compared to the Canadian-born natives whose percentage was 28.