It can be hard for newcomers to get a foot in the door with Canadian employers but it becomes easier with time, a new report shows.
Immigrants are more highly educated on average than their Canadian-born counterparts but their unemployment rates are significantly higher, according to Statistics Canada. However, that employment gap narrows and ultimately disappears after more years in the country.
Last year, almost 12 per cent of immigrants who had been in Canada five years or less were unemployed ? more than double the five per cent jobless rate of native-born Canadians. After five to 10 years here, just over seven per cent of immigrants didn?t have jobs. Eventually, ?established? immigrants with over a decade in the country level off at the same unemployment rates as Canadian-born workers.
?It is difficult for most new immigrants to break into the workforce right away, especially in a professional field,? says Laurie Sing, program manager in career services with the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. ?The foreign credentials and lack of work experience are still major barriers.?
Language skills also pose a challenge, she says, because even foreigners who?ve taken advanced lessons can have a hard time with the subtleties and cultural references that help them fit in at a potential workplace.
Employment challenges persist for immigrants despite the fact that they tend to have more education than Canadian-born workers, Statistics Canada numbers show. While 36 per cent of immigrants aged 25 to 54 have at least a bachelor?s degree, just 22 per cent of Canadian-born do.
Within the immigrant population, women ? especially those under 24 ? have a harder time finding jobs than men, regardless of how long they?ve been in the country.
However, Alberta?s hot job market means that in that province, even brand-new immigrants enjoy a six per cent unemployment rate ? the lowest of any region of the country. That?s still double the unemployment rate for Canadian-born Albertans, but half the national average for newcomers. On the other hand, immigrants in Quebec have the highest unemployment rates in the country, with 18 per cent of very recent arrivals unable to find a job.
The data comes from the Labour Force Survey, and this report focused on the ?core working age group? of 25 to 54 years.
Canada needs to be known as a place where newcomers can succeed or it risks losing the best and brightest to an increasingly competitive global labour market, says Elizabeth McIsaac, executive director of Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council.
?When we select immigrants and give them the visas to come as permanent residents to Canada, there is an implied promise that there is opportunity,? she says.
Enrique Maglanque is one of the success stories. The 45-year-old emigrated from the Philippines in May with his wife, Erlinda, and their children Louise, 13, Patricia, 11, and nine-year-old Andrew. A mechanical engineer by training, Maglanque worked on government mining and geosciences projects for 17 years before leaving Manila.
He stayed with his brother in North Vancouver when he first arrived in Canada, but as soon as he was able to rent a house, he launched his job search with a 10-day workshop at the Immigrant Services Society (ISS). Maglanque reworked his resume and sent it out to 50 employers as far away as Yukon in hopes of finding a job in his field.
He credits his years of experience and demand for his skills with the fact that he landed a job after less than two months in Canada, but Maglanque knows his experience isn?t typical.
?I was just lucky,? he says. ?Most of my friends and acquaintances had a harder time and they had to take on a survival job before they were able to later take a job which was more suitable to their training and experience.?
Still, Sing at ISS has seen encouraging signs in the last six months. Her clients are getting better jobs and getting them faster, she says, and that effect isn?t limited to B.C.
?I think that upswing in the labour market is meaning there are more jobs open, there are better jobs open, there?s less competition for those jobs than there was in the past, and that?s good for new immigrants,? she says.
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