Immigrant jobs | Income disparity Immigrant jobs | Income disparity
Back to Resource Library Index Page
Employment
The wealth position of immigrant families in Canada
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0019MIE/11F0019MIE2003197.pdf
Recent immigrants have lower wealth than comparable Canadian-born families, and immigrants who arrived before 1976 have higher wealth. While immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1976 and 1985 are widely believed to initially have had more of an earnings disadvantage than their predecessors with respect to the Canadian-born, the wealth of this cohort is not significantly different from that of comparable Canadian-born families.The Changing Face of Canada: A Profile of the Working Poor in Canada
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0024MIE/pdf/abstracts/series2/2-a.fortin.pdf
Descriptive profile of the working poor in Canada based on Statistics Canada’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics… Overview of the policies and programs that support the working poor in North America and in Europe – Summary, Statistics Canada’s Economic Conference, 2004A Review of Low Income and Inequality in Canada: Trends, Persistence, Target Groups and an International Perspective
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0024MIE/pdf/abstracts/series3/3-a.picot.pdf
Low income among immigrants is the component of low income that has been increasing the fastest during the past 10 to 20 years in Canada. A substantial discussion of this issue is included. Summary, 2004Explaining the Deteriorating Entry Earnings of Canada’s Immigrant Cohorts: 1966-2000
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0024MIE/pdf/abstracts/series2/2-g.aydemir.pdf
“Our results indicate that no more than one-third of the deterioration can be explained by compositional shifts in the knowledge of an official language, mother tongue and region of origin of recent immigrant cohorts. We also find little or no evidence that declining returns to foreign education are responsible...” Summary, 2004Driving a Cab After Graduating from University : The Incidence of Overqualification Among Recent Immigrants, 1991-2001
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0024MIE/pdf/abstracts/series2/2-g.galarneau.pdf
At least one fourth of recent immigrants with a university degree are in jobs requiring at most a high school diploma. The chances of recent immigrants' being overqualified are higher among members of visible minority groups, individuals in non-applied fields of study, individuals from Asian countries and women. Among Canadian-born men, those who are members of visible minorities are no more likely to be overqualified than others, thereby suggesting that the problems faced by recent immigrant men who are members of visible minorities cannot simplybe explained by discrimination towards visible minority groups… Overqualification has serious consequences for earnings…Abstract, 2004Governments Failing Newcomers: Highly Skilled Immigrants Being Forced to Use Food Banks
http://www.dailybread.ca/media/publications/Report%20on%20immigrant%20
use%20of%20food%20banks.pdf
Clients confirm recent trends that people not born in Canada make up approximately half of the population of 175,000 people using food banks in the GTA, or about 87,500 people. Among that group of immigrants, almost ¼ have been in Canada for less than 1 year. In addition to that, a further 18% have been in Canada for 1-4 years. Looking at the overall numbers of people using food banks, just over 20% are immigrants who have been in Canada less than 4 years, or approximately 35,000 people. In terms of place of origin, immigrants come from all over the world. Eastern Europe, South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are all represented amongst the top ten places newcomers using food banks were born. Even the United States is represented on this list. The majority of these immigrants survive on income which is approximately half of the Low Income Cut-Off, the unofficial poverty line.Earnings Differentials among Ethnic Groups in Canada: A Review of the Research
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(xuphlo4545uigrvz0aomxhrw)/app/home/contribution.asp?
referrer=parent&backto=issue,3,10;journal,20,22;linkingpublicationresults,1:104728,1or http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rrse/2000/00000058/00000003/art00003
Canada has a large foreign-born population with an increasingly diverse ethnic profile. The 1986 Employment Equity Act designated ''visible minorities,'' Aboriginal peoples, women, and disabled persons as facing labor market disadvantages. This review of a growing body of research on ethnic earning differentials shows that the sizeable earnings shortfall of Aboriginal peoples could be ''explained'' by their lesser endowments of work-related characteristics. The high variance in discrimination estimates among men can be traced to the treatment of immigration effects, aggregation of diverse ethnic groups, and the choice of the non-discriminatory earnings norm… Abstract, September 2000Income disparity - Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Quality of Life Reporting System (QOLRS), 1990-2000
http://www.city.saskatoon.sk.ca/org/city_planning/resources/publications/Quality_of_Life_Eng.pdf
Improvement in incomes was the result of rapid growth at the highest end of the income scale. Median (i.e., “typical”) family incomes grew significantly in only a limited number of medium-sized municipalities during this time and declined in half of the 20 QOLRS municipalities. Median family income declined significantly in the two largest urban centres: Toronto and Vancouver.Visible minority population - Quality of Life Reporting System Highlights Report
http://www.city.saskatoon.sk.ca/org/city_planning/resources/publications/Quality_of_Life_Eng.pdf
What had been the visible minority population in several Canadian municipalities will soon make up the largest part of the total population. In 2001, 49 per cent of the City of Vancouver’s residents were considered visible minority. Municipalities like Toronto (43 per cent in 2001) and Peel (39 per cent) will see these populations approaching 50 per cent over the next five years.Educational attainment - Quality of Life Reporting System Highlights Report, 1990-2000
http://www.city.saskatoon.sk.ca/org/city_planning/resources/publications/Quality_of_Life_Eng.pdf
By 2001, the proportion of QOLRS municipality residents who had completed a post-secondary certificate, diploma, or degree program was approaching 25 per cent, well above the rate in the rest of Canada (16 per cent in 2001)… People older than 15 with less than a Grade 9 education are considered illiterate. Fewer than 3 per cent of the QOLRS population aged 25-34 fell into this category in 1991. By 2001, this number had fallen to 1.6 per cent (3.1 per cent in the rest of Canada). Illiteracy for all QOLRS residents above age 15 fell from close to 11 per cent to under 8 per cent during the same period. The rate of illiteracy in the 15+ age group in the rest of Canada fell from 16 per cent to 11 per cent during this time… Municipalities with a highly educated labour force and a weak local economy may not fulfill expectations and risk losing their highly skilled labour force. Adding to this problem, many newcomers to the country are unable to fulfill their employment goals because their academic credentials are not immediately recognized. Evidence of this phenomenon is already apparent in the form of education levels rising while employment levels remain largely the same. The rapid changes in educational attainment suggest a need to examine more closely changes in the “human capital” of municipalities—a measure of the combination of qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge and the opportunities to use that capital.Labour force participation - Quality of Life Reporting System Highlights Report, 1990-2000
http://www.city.saskatoon.sk.ca/org/city_planning/resources/publications/Quality_of_Life_Eng.pdf
Income growth of “minority” or “vulnerable” groups was substantially lower during the period 1991-2001 than their “majority” counterparts. One important form of interaction occurs within the context of labour force participation. Participation rates for new immigrants failed to rise between 1991 and 2001; remained a full 8 percentage points lower than non-immigrants; and fell significantly in several larger urban centres.Falling Behind: Our Growing Income Gap
http://www.fcm.ca/english/documents/falling.pdf
2001 Census: As the income gap widens, the groups most at risk of living in poverty are children, lone-parent families, visible minorities, immigrants and refugees, seniors, people with disabilities, and Aboriginal people. Calgary, Saskatoon and Toronto share a number of common experiences… minimum wage. In none of the provinces could a person earn enough money working full time at a minimum wage job, to move out of poverty… Successful approaches are those involving multiple stakeholders representing a range of interests, leadership, locally based solutions, and the capacity to bridge institutional boundaries… Effective public policies and programs, particularly national ones, continue to be important in relieving income disparity. Policy and program timeframes should reflect the complex nature of the income-gap problem. Effective short-term support is needed to get people through difficult periods. Longer term responses are needed to deal with systemic problems and to meet the needs of low-income people… Lack of intergovernmental cooperation and collaboration was identified as one of the reasons little is being done to fix mounting problems in cities.Canada s Creeping Economic Apartheid
http://www.socialjustice.org/pdfs/economicapartheid.pdf
“The economic segregation and social marginalisation of racialised groups calls attention to the growing racialisation of the gap between the rich and poor, which is proceeding with minimal public and policy attention, despite the dire implications for Canadian society.”PovNet
http://www.povnet.org/immigrants.htm
Online resource for the anti-poverty communityCanadian Council on Social Development
http://www.ccsd.ca/facts.html
Poverty statisticsThe Canadian Fact Book on Poverty 2000 – Working Definitions of Poverty
http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2000/fbpov00/chapter2.pdf
Various prevailing definitions of poverty, and their shortcomings… Because poverty is based on the deficit of income compared to essential expenditures, disagreements over how poverty should be defined can be reduced conceptually to two questions. First, how is income defined? Second, what are legitimate necessary expenditures – and necessary for what purpose? Of course, the answers to these questions depend on place, time, and household circumstances…Poverty by Postal Code
http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/who_we_help/social_issues_uw_reports.html
“In the past two decades, Toronto has changed dramatically and not all for the good. The income gap is widening and neighbourhood poverty has intensified. As the numbers of high poverty neighbourhoods increase – especially in the inner suburbs – everyone’s quality of life suffers”…Centre for Social Justice
http://www.socialjustice.org/view.php?storyid=9
The impact of race and immigration status on employment opportunities and outcomes in Canada
In 2001, the unemployment rate for racialized groups was 12.6% compared to 6.7% for the total population… According to Statistics Canada in 2001, male immigrants with a university degree earned 55.8% less than their Canadian-born counterparts while women earned 56.6% less than their female counterparts…The Deteriorating Economic Welfare of Immigrants and Possible Causes
http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/statcan/research_paper_analytical_11f0019-e/
2005/no262/11F0019MIE2005262.pdf
Contents: The Declining Entry Level Earnings Among Immigrants, The Deteriorating Low-Income Position of Recent Immigrants, Why the Decline in Relative Entry Level Earnings, and Rising Low-Income Among Recent Immigrants? The Changing Characteristics of Immigrants Entering, Other Factors, Source Regions: Education Quality, Language Skills and Discrimination, The Returns to Years of Schooling and the Credentialism Issue, Declining Returns to Foreign Labour Market Experience, Deteriorating Labour Market Outcomes for New Labour Market Entrants in General, of Which Immigrants are a Part, Fluctuations in Macro-Economic Conditions, Strong Competition from the Increasingly Highly-Educated Canadian-Born, Changes in Social Transfer Usage and Other Income Sources…Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, Statistics Canada - Update 2005Self-employment and part-time jobs dominate employment growth during the 1990s
http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/who_we_help/pdfs/turningpoint.pdf
“According to Statistics Canada, a total of 2.6 million Canadians were self-employed at the end of 1998, up 42% since the start of the decade. Self-employment has grown at a rate seven times faster than growth in “employees.” Growth in self-employment has led to less secure employment and lower earnings… In 1995, over 55% of these self-employed individuals earned less than $20,000 annually, and only 2.2% earned over $80,000. Individuals who are self-employed may also lack important benefits such as employment insurance; employer sponsored pensions, disability plans, and basic medical insurance. As a proportion of total employment in Canada, self-employment increased from 14% to 18%, part-time employment increased from 18% to 19%, and fulltime employment fell from 69% to 63%.Employment - Household income trends
http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/who_we_help/pdfs/turningpoint.pdf
Low-income families have experienced the most severe decline in income… the poorest 10% of families in Canada have seen their market income fall by 61.6% between 1986 and 1996… A larger proportion of youth and women work part-time than is the case for men. While most people in these groups work part-time voluntarily, roughly 30% of adult women and 23% of youth would prefer full-time employment…Labour Market Attachment Needs of Immigrants in Nova Scotia
http://www.misa.ns.ca/WhatsNew/LabourMarketStudy.htm
To address newcomers’ needs, smaller provinces like Nova Scotia need a system that has the flexibility to adapt to individuals’ needs.Immigrant job issues
http://directory.womenspace.ca/directory_topics.cgi?Immigration
Resourceful site for immigrants and visible minorities in Canada specializing in practices in the Canadian job market.Poverty breeds isolation and exclusion
http://www.fcm.ca/english/documents/falling.pdf
Many poor people, families, children and seniors are isolated by lack of transportation, user fees or other eligibility and access issues. Low-income groups were frequently described as not having a political voice and being left out.Women at particular risk of poverty
http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_fact_sheet_e.htm
Thirty-seven percent of visible minority women are low income, compared with 19% of all women. The average annual income for a visible minority woman in Canada is $16,621, almost $3000 less than the average for other women ($19,495) and almost $7,000 less than that of visible minority men ($23,635). Education does not reduce the income gap between immigrant women and Canadian-born women. Recent immigrant women between the ages of 25-44 who have a university degree and who worked full-year, full-time earn $14,000 less than Canadian-born women.Workopolis - New Canadian Advisor
http://transobj.workopolis.com/content/resource/newcanadians/index.html
This section is intended to help people who want to be independent class immigrants. These are skilled workers, who are chosen for their ability to fit into Canadian society. Learn about the selection process and about how to fit into the Canadian labour market.Governments Failing Newcomers: Highly Skilled Immigrants Being Forced to Use Food Banks
http://www.dailybread.ca/media/publications/Report%20on%20immigrant%20
use%20of%20food%20banks.pdf
91% of immigrants among Food Bank users are not working in the areas they were trained in or have job experience in.
60% of immigrants have university level education or a trade certification compared to only 36% of Canadian-born clients. 8% of immigrants have a Master’s degree or higher compared to 1% of the Canadian-born population.
Average Income Band of Non-Canadian Born Food Bank Clients by Household
Single Household: $300-$599 monthly or $3,600-$7,168 annually
2-Person Household: $900-$1,199 monthly or $10,800-$14,388 annually
3-Person Household: $900-$1,199 monthly or $10,800-$14,388 annually
Top 5 Fields of Study: Nursing/ Healthcare Professional: 17.3%; Engineering: 9.8%; Business Administration: 9.3%; Computers/ IT: 7.8%; Education: 4.6%. 2005 Survey, Ontario.Taxation Considerations
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20050614/documents/I-complete.pdf
Ensure incomes below the poverty line (commonly understood as Low Income Cut Off) are not taxed... It has become untenable for those with the very least income to continue to help subsidize programs for those better off (e.g. subsidies/grants to businesses; energy retrofitting programs for homeowners; generous pensions for MPs; education saving funds utilized disproportionately by higher income families; etc.) - Statistics Canada, 2001Income penalty: Age Discrimination and the Employment Rights of Elderly Canadian Immigrants
http://www.lcc.gc.ca/pdf/grant.pdf
The incidence of low income among elderly immigrants (17.5 percent among men and 26.4 percent among women) remains unacceptably high and is significantly greater than that for native-born Canadians (11.4 percent for men and 22.6 percent for women). Despite the decline in the incidence of poverty among Canada’s elderly, much economic hardship persists and it is heavily concentrated among specific groups of immigrants… An immigrant’s year of arrival in Canada plays a significant role in explaining current income. Recent cohorts of immigrants, by virtue of their limited number of years in the Canadian labour market, incurred a substantial income penalty…Immigrant Earnings Differentials and Cohort Effects in Canada (Postwar 1992)
http://canada.metropolis.net/research-policy/litreviews/bjot_bib/bjot_bib-04a.html
This paper investigates immigrant earnings differentials for males inCanada and how these earnings have changed over time leading up to 1972 withworkers' year of birth. The paper uses the 1973 Job Mobility Survey, which containsa direct measure of work experience reported independent of age. Thus, using ageas a birthyear index, it is found that crosssectional earnings differentials ofimmigrant men have widened since the later 1960s relative to those of nativebornworkers. This discrepancy is due to a steepening of earningsexperience profiles fornative workers, a flattening of the yearssincemigration earnings profile forimmigrants, and a further flattening of the earningsexperience profile ofimmigrants. Abstract, Metropolis CanadaImmigrants and Canadianborn: A Consumption Behaviour Assessment.
http://canada.metropolis.net/research-policy/litreviews/bjot_bib/bjot_bib-04a.html
This study undertakes an examination of the demandside impact of immigration on the Canadian economy. Consumption patterns, both aggregate and disaggregate, are estimated using the data base provided by the 1986 Statistics Canada Survey of Family Expenditures. Aggregate results indicate that immigrant consumption patterns approach those of the Canadianborn over time while the disaggregate analysis provides several exceptions to this finding. While immigrants tend to behave like their Canadianborn counterparts in areas of shelter, household operation and health care, significant differences are observed in the majority of other categories analyzed. Abstract, Metropolis CanadaPoverty and Exclusion: Precarious Jobs and Social Exclusion
http://policyresearch.gc.ca/page.asp?pagenm=v7n2_art_07
Precarious jobs provide very limited, if any, access to progressive career ladders and workplace training. Dead-end jobs held by many women, recent immigrants, Aboriginal people, and persons with disabilities do not help people develop the skills and capacities they need to access better jobs, embark on lifetime career ladders, and better handle labour market risks, such as permanent layoffs due to economic change... Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands all had good records of job creation and economic growth in the 1990s, with a very low incidence of low-wage work compared to North America. This suggests a different model is possible, even if it is not necessarily easy to create... The relative success of these countries in creating higher-quality jobs and high levels of employment has been accomplished by: regulating the labour market to create a wage floor and a low level of wage inequality; keeping the non-wage costs of employment low by providing social and economic security primarily through public programs financed from general taxation; providing significant investment in active labour market policies to upgrade the skills of those at greatest risk of engaging in precarious employment; and building a distinct kind of post-industrial service economy, based on a large non-market sector and high productivity private services.Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (2003)
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051013/d051013b.htm
Of the immigrants who found employment, many worked throughout their first two years in Canada. Over half (58%) worked for 18 months or more and three-quarters worked for more than one year… One in five had not had any employment during this period. The majority of these individuals were women (74%), many of whom were spouses or dependents of immigrants in the economic category, or immigrants in the family category. Statistics Canada, The DailyWhy the earnings of new immigrants to Canada have deteriorated over time (1966-2000)
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/040517/d040517a.htm
The earnings of new immigrants to Canada deteriorated during the 1980s and 1990s because of a complex set of factors involving the value of foreign job experience, language abilities and nation of origin… Immigrant men who arrived between 1995 and 1999 had estimated earnings in their first year in Canada that were on average 24% lower than their counterparts who arrived between 1965 and 1969, after adjusting for inflation. This is with comparable amounts of foreign experience and years of schooling… Roughly one-third of the deterioration in the earnings of new immigrants appears to be the result of a decline in the value of foreign labour market experience. This decline has occurred almost exclusively among men from Canada's non-traditional source regions, which include Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia… It may be that there is an issue regarding the valuation of foreign credentials in the Canadian labour market. However, this analysis suggests that the value of a foreign university degree has fallen little during the past 30 years. Hence, this factor does not contribute significantly to the understanding of the decline in entry earnings…. Statistics Canada, The DailyImmigrants Settling for Less? (1991-2001)
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/040623/d040623c.htm
University-educated immigrants were twice as likely as their Canadian-born counterparts during the 1990s to hold jobs that fell well short of their level of education… At least one in four recent immigrants with a university degree who were employed between 1991 and 2001 had a job requiring no more than a high school education. This was twice the proportion of only 12% among native-born Canadians… From 1991 to 2001, the mismatch rate for recent male immigrants with a degree in the health field jumped from 16% to 26%. Among women it rose from 28% to 36%. This occurred despite current pressure on the health professions and the anticipation of more pressure because of an aging population… Recent immigrants most likely to have low-education jobs in 2001 came from South or Southeast Asia, had a mother tongue other than English or French, were members of a visible minority and were women…Statistics Canada, The DailyJob Creation (2000-2001)
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insbrp-rppe.nsf/en/rd00657e.html
More than 127 000 net new jobs were created between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the fourth quarter of 2001. This marks a significant decline from the almost 600 000 new jobs created in the first quarter of 2001. Small businesses (with up to 99 employees) created 117 % of the net new jobs, compensating for the job losses incurred by medium-sized businesses (100 to 499 employees)…. On a year-over-year basis, nearly 290 000 net jobs were created in 2001, three-quarters of these jobs in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec... Overall, 47 % of the jobs were created by firms with fewer than 100 employees. Across provinces, however, the pattern varied considerably. The small business contribution to job creation ranged from -15 % in Nova Scotia to 62 % in Newfoundland. Conversely, large businesses (more than 500 employees) shrank their employment by 11 % in Newfoundland while making up 96 % of net job growth in Nova Scotia.The Majority of Canada's Businesses are Very Small - Small Business Primer (1997)
http://www.cfib.ca/research/reports/primer.asp
Firms with more than 50 employees make up less than three per cent of Canada's business population. (928,000 firms with paid employees)...
Almost three-quarters of small businesses rely mainly on referrals when searching for new employees. Referrals are trusted the most because they involve little cost and they are effective at screening potential candidates. Advertising in a local paper is the second-most common search technique, favoured by one-third of business owners... Younger Firms tend to Hire more Youths than Older Firms... Growing Small Firms are Also Major Spenders on R&D: Among growing small and medium-sized businesses, firms with sales under $1 million proportionally spend two- to three-times more on R&D than their larger counterparts. R&D is one of the most significant determinants of small business success... Business Owners Typically Work Long Hours: 26 % of business owners usually work more than 55 hours per week, compared to only three per cent of paid employees. There is relatively little difference in the hours worked among employees and business owners working part-time... But Typically Earn Less Than Employees: Family incomes of employers and the self-employed tend to be lower than the family incomes of employees. In 1995, the median family income of employers and the self employed was about $44,000, compared to about $57,000 for families headed by paid employees... Larger Firms are More Profitable than Smaller Firms: Over time, large firms have been consistently more profitable than smaller sized firms. Taxation is among the principal reasons for small and medium sized firms performance. In 1995, the return on assets ratio for large firms was about 6 per cent while small firms and medium firms had a return on assets of roughly 4 per cent.Profile of Poverty - Access to professions and trades (NOIVMWC)
action.web.ca/home/narcc/attach/Two%20Faces%20-%204%5B1%5D%
5B1%5D.%20EMPLOYMENT.rtf
Racism and sexism are a dominant feature of the Canadian workplace. 73% of all cases of race, ethnic and other forms of discrimination happen in the workplace, according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Compounded discrimination, for example, the genderized racism faced by racially visible women, is poorly understood or acted on. In addition, human rights commissions rarely have the teeth to enforce judgements and the awards are not large enough to act as deterrents. Canada's immigration and employment policies further place women at risk from traffickers and employers where they may be exposed to forced labour or marriage, rape, torture, execution, and loss of freedom... With "Resources on Employment in Canada" - a long list of related articles.Youth and the labour market 1997 to 2004
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051123/d051123b.htm
Between 1997 and 2004, job creation among youth aged 15 to 24 rose 21.1%, the equivalent of 428,000 new jobs. This compares with a growth rate of just 15.8% among adults aged 25 and over. In particular, the strong economy has benefited young women, whose job gains have outstripped those of young men, breaking a long-standing trend. During periods of economic growth, young men have historically had higher rates of employment than young women. The retail trade sector, the largest employer of teenagers, was the driving force behind new jobs for teenagers. Between 1997 and 2004, employment among teens grew by 192,000, with half of this growth (97,000) in retail trade... A distant second was the accommodation and food services sector, where 61,000 new jobs were added. In both sectors, more jobs went to girls than boys. That is because more women tend to take jobs as cashiers, salespeople or servers in food and beverage outlets. These were the occupations with above-average growth rates during this eight-year period... Among young adults aged 20 to 24, employment rose 18%, the equivalent of 236,000 jobs. Women again got more jobs than men.... Growth in this age group was spread across several industries. For young women, it occurred mainly in health care and social assistance, and in information, culture and recreation and educational services. For young men, the growth sectors were construction; business, building and other support services; and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing. The Daily, Statistics CanadaWorking Temporarily in Canada - Overview
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/
Every year over 90,000 foreign workers enter Canada working temporarily to help Canadian employers address skill shortages in Canada. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) ensure that these workers will support economic growth in Canada and create more opportunities for all Canadian job seekers.Jobs Exempt from Work Permit Requirement
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/exempt-1.html
In special situations, you may be able to work temporarily in Canada without holding a work permit issued by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).Immigrant Occupations: Recent Trends and Issues
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/research/papers/occupations/occupations-d.html
Most Common Occupations: Computer Programmers, Computer Systems Analysts, Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Civil Engineers, Accountants and Management Professionals are included in the 1996-2000 and 2000 top 10 occupations list. In the year 2000, computer engineers, chemical engineers and financial analysts rounded out the top 10, but for the period 1996-2000, Secretaries, Biologists and Cooks rounded out the top 10. Not only are immigrants increasingly likely to have higher skill levels and more credentials, they are also more likely to be trained scientists and engineers. The number of applicants intended for business and finance occupations pale in comparison to levels recorded for natural and applied science occupations. Professional occupations in natural and applied sciences have become the uncontested dominant occupation of recent immigrants during the 1990s. Since 1993, in particular, this category has steadily outpaced other intended occupations, especially those in administration and sales and services. This is a reflection of new selection criteria that gave more weight to education, and linked occupations to labour market demand...Closing the Wage Gap: Economic Assimilation of Canadian Immigrants
http://www.irpp.org/events/archive/may00/hum.pdf
We explored the role of immigrant status as a source of labour market disadvantage among visible minorities in Canada. We investigated these wage differentials in terms of a "wage gap"; that is, the percentage difference in wages offered for various groups in question relative to the wages offered to whites, employing a standard wage-determinants model with such independent human capital variables as age, gender, education, language knowledge, work experience and the like, regional variables, as well as immigration-variables such as years since migrating to Canada, age at migration, and finally, visible minority group membership. We also corrected for selection bias, where warranted. We computed these wage differentials for immigrants and for native born Canadians, as well as separately for men and women.Does a Rising Tide Lift All Boats? The Labour Market Experiences and Incomes of Recent Immigrants, 1995 to 1998
http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2002/risingtide/risingtide.pdf
The large gaps in earnings between recent visible minority immigrants and other Canadians cannot be explained by inferior levels of formal education… The point system used for selecting immigrants brings many highly educated people to Canada. In 1998, 72% of immigrants in the “skilled workers” category had a university degree. The overall proportion of university graduates among all categories of immigrants – including refugees, family-class immigrants and independents – was substantially higher than that for Canadians in the same core working-age group: for immigrant men, it was 36% versus 18% for Canadian men; among immigrant women, 31% were university graduates compared to 20% of Canadian women. To some degree, higher levels of education among recent immigrants may reflect their relative youth, but they are striking nonetheless.Education, Credentials and Immigrant Earnings
http://www.econ.ubc.ca/ine/papers/wp020.pdf
The work experience of immigrants in their country of origin is valued much less than the experience of comparable native-born workers. A similar result holds for the years of schooling of immigrants. However, the estimated sheepskin effects for immigrants are generally higher than those of native-born Canadians. Thus, the frequently heard claim that the credentials of immigrants are not recognized needs to be treated with some caution. For immigrants the increase in earnings associated with completing an educational program is higher than that of a comparable native born worker… The human capital of immigrants who complete their education in Canada is not discounted by the Canadian labour market, in contrast to the situation for immigrants who obtained their education before arrival... Immigrants from the US/UK and the native born receive similar returns to both dimensions of education. However, immigrants from other regions generally experience lower returns to years of schooling and larger earnings gains associated with diplomas and degrees, especially postgraduate degrees... What our results do imply is that the gap in earnings between immigrants and the native-born is narrowed (or at least not widened) by completion of educational programs.National Policies and Legal Rights: From the Disability and Multicultural Perspectives
http://www.tacdca.com/ConferenceAnnouncement2004.htm
The fact that a very large percentage of the disabled ethnocultural community is unemployed and lives on social assistance warrants attention and scrutiny. Indeed, even the unconscionably high rate of unemployment within the mainstream disability community pales in comparison with the situation of the disabled ethnocultural community: When in Manitoba, for instance, the rate of unemployment in the general population is 5%, the unemployment rate is about 45% for the mainstream disability community, but as much as 90%, approximately, for the ethnocultural disability community… African Canadian Disability Community Association (INC)Taxation Considerations - Pensions in Canada: Policy Reform Because Women Matter
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/411/PDF%20Files/WEACT_PositionPaperEnglLetter.pdf
Ensure incomes below the poverty line (commonly understood as Low Income Cut Off) are not taxed. It has become untenable for those with the very least income to continue to help subsidize programs for those better off - e.g. subsidies/grants to businesses; energy retrofitting programs for homeowners; generous pensions for MPs; education saving funds utilized disproportionately by higher income families; etc.The rise in low-income rates among immigrants in Canada
http://dsp-psd.communication.gc.ca/Collection/Statcan/11F0019MIE/
11F0019MIE2003198.pdf
In the aggregate, low-income rates fell among Canadian born, and rose among most immigrant groups... Immigrant low-income rates have been on a continuous upward long term trend over the 1980, 1990 to 2000 period. This is true regardless of the number of years of Canadian experience (except for those in Canada for more than 20 years)... Degree holders had both the largest increase in the immigrant population share and the low-income rate... The increase in recent immigrant low-income rates was widespread, occurring among immigrants from all age groups, whether the immigrants spoke an official language or not, in all family types (except single parents, who already had an extremely high rate), and all educational levels… In spite of the concern regarding the rising demand for the highly educated, and the needs of the “knowledge based economy”, having a degree, no matter what the discipline, did not protect these recent immigrants from a rising probability of being in low-income… After a number of years in Canada, low-income rates remained higher among more recent entering cohorts than among those of the 1970s… The domestic supply of highly educated workers in Canada has been rising at a rapid pace over the past two decades. The number of women in the labour force with a university degree more than quadrupled between 1980 and 2000, a dramatic change in the stock of the highly educated over a short time span. The number of comparable men more than doubled, so that overall the supply of the highly educated rose approximately 160%. - Statistics Canada Publication.