Immigrant pay steady despite skills: Study
Jan 30, 2007 09:53 AM
Canadian Press
OTTAWA – A new report suggests immigrants are financially no better off now than they were before the turn of the millennium, even though they have more education and skilled qualifications than a decade ago.
The report by Statistics Canada examines the economic welfare of immigrant families and individuals and assesses their economic situation since 2000, the extent of so-called “chronic” low income, and the impact of changes in education and skill classes on their economic well-being since 1993.
Government researchers found that the large increase in education among new immigrants and a policy shift toward favouring skilled-class immigrants had only small impacts on their income levels.
The immigrant selection system was modified in 1993 to attract more highly educated and skilled immigrants, helping boost the proportion with university degrees to 45 per cent in 2004 from 17 per cent in 1992.
The report says new immigrants’ chances of remaining out of low income were quite high if they escaped it in their first full year in Canada.
Immigrant pay lags despite more skills
Jan 30, 2007 11:18 AM
Prithi Yelaja
Staff Reporter
Despite having much higher levels of education, the economic plight of new immigrants to Canada remains less rosy than a decade ago, according to a new government report.
The report, released by Statistics Canada today, found that in 2002, immigrants during their first year in this country were 3.5 times more than likely than Canadian-born people to have low-incomes, though by 2004, the rate had dipped slightly to 3.2.
Those rates are up from the 1990s when they were about three times higher than those for Canadian-born people.
Low income was defined as a family of four living on less than $26,800 per year. The study included taxation data and landing records of immigrants from 1992 to 2004.
The low-income rates for newcomers has inched upward despite a shift in 1993 in Canada’s immigrant selection process with an emphasis on choosing more highly skilled labour such as engineers and information technology (IT) workers, said Garnett Picot, director general of the social and economic studies branch and the study’s author.
However, when those immigrants arrived, they were up against a downturn in the IT sector in 2000 when jobs were scarce.
Other barriers to new immigrants seeking work in Canada are of a more long-standing nature, said Picot.
“They get no credit for foreign work experience. There may be language and literacy issues. And there is very little research on the ability of the Canadian economy to absorb highly skilled workers.”
Canada produces large numbers of its own highly educated and skilled workers, so newcomers are competing with them for these plum jobs.
Timing is key to staying out of the low-income trap, according to the report. Depending on their year of arrival, immigrants had a 34 to 46 per cent probability of being low income. However, if they escaped low income in their first full year, the likelihood of that happening fell to 10 per cent or less during their subsequent years in Canada.
Even for those who did experience low-income, between 34 and 41 per cent left that category after one year, while one-third remained at that level after three years.
Immigrants still facing low incomes
Jan 30, 2007 03:05 PM
Prithi Yelaja
Staff Reporter
Despite having much higher levels of education, the economic plight of new immigrants to Canada remains less rosy than a decade ago, according to a new government report.
The report, released by Statistics Canada today, found that in 2002 immigrants during their first year in this country were 3.5 times more than likely than Canadian-born people to have low incomes, though by 2004 the rate had dipped slightly to 3.2.
Those rates are up from the 1990s when they were about three times higher than those born in Canada. Low income was defined as a family of four living on less than $26,800 per year. The low-income rates for newcomers have inched upward despite a shift in 1993 in Canada’s immigrant selection process.
