Newcomers to Canada are catching up to Canadians in finding jobs post-COVID, with the employment rate of new immigrants growing by 12.7 percentage points compared to 4.2 for Canadian workers between November 2010 and November 2022.
Details from the most recent Labor Force survey revealed that the smallest gap between the employment rate for the two groups was in December 2021, when newcomers had a rate of 79.6 per cent and Canadian-born workers were at 85.8 percent.
Today, the employment rate for newcomers is 76.3 per cent and that for Canadians is 85.9 per cent, which is still a significantly reduced gap between the two groups.
In 2006, for example, the gap between the two demographics was close to 17 percent.
Newcomers are defined as those who came to Canada and were granted permanent residence in the last five years.
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According to a Statistics Canada study from February 2024 – as reported by The Hub – the relative growth in the employment rate of this demographic is due to three factors:
- The expansion of the two-step immigration process in which more Canadian economic immigrants are being selected from the pre-existing pool of temporary foreign workers. The number of new Canadians who had work permits before obtaining their Canada PR rose significantly from 19 percent in 2010 to 36 percent in 2022.
- Changes to Canada’s immigration selection process since 2010, including the Express Entry launched in 2015, which places greater emphasis on Canada work experience, language proficiency, and education.
- The strong Canadian labor market, which is underscored by low unemployment and caused a rise in demand for university-educated immigrants.
Statistics Canada data released earlier in 2023 showcased a clear correlation between the employment rate of core working-age immigrants and the amount of time that has passed since they came to Canada.
According to this report, the longer a core working-age immigrant (25-to-54-year-old) stayed in Canada, the higher their employment rate was.
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More so, the employment rate figures in this report were the highest they had been since 2019 for those who had been in Canada between 5-10 years and for at least 10 years.
The figure did, however, witness a fall between 2022 and 2023 for those who came to Canada five or fewer years ago.
The employment rate for Canadians in April 2024 held steady at 61.4%, after six back-to-back declines. However, employment increased by 90,000 (+0.4%).
These employment gains were driven by part-time employment (+50,000; +1.4%), and increased in professional, scientific and technical services (+26,000; +1.3%), accommodation and food services (+24,000; +2.2%), health care and social assistance (+17,000; +0.6%) and natural resources (+7,700; +2.3%), while it fell in utilities (-5,000; -3.1%).
Provincially, employment increased in Ontario (+25,000; +0.3%), British Columbia (+23,000; +0.8%), Quebec (+19,000 +0.4%) and New Brunswick (+7,800; +2.0%) in April. It was little changed in the other provinces.
