Despite Canada's strategic response to align labor market needs with economic migration, newcomers still find it difficult to succeed in the Canadian labor market. A report from Employment and Social Development Canada indicates that immigrants with university degrees are overrepresented in low- and middle-skilled sectors and underrepresented in highly skilled jobs. The Globe and Mail's Andrew Seale writes that the new immigration measures risk repeating some of the previous patterns if adjustments are not made to both education, employer and cultural attitudes for newcomers. Muraly Srinarayanathas, co-founder and president of Computer College (a private vocational college in southern Ontario providing training in higher-skilled fields such as business, technology and health care health for newcomers and second- and third-generation immigrants), argues that Canada has long viewed immigration through the lens of the refugee experience, in which they find themselves in a state of absolute despair. hope, survival and struggle. “There are also a lot of immigrants that come highly skilled, [with] foreign credentialing, and I don’t think Canada serves those different communities in the right way,” she says. “It’s a real missed opportunity.” This is despite talent shortages causing more Canadian businesses to look at newcomers as a badly needed source of labour. “Right now, about half of newcomers to Canada are economic migrants,” says executive director of Future Skills Centre Pedro Barata. “The target is 60 per cent by 2025.” In fact, Ottawa – thanks to its revamped Express Entry program launched in May – is expected to welcome 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. Even so, this sets it apart from Canada's history of “elite access”. With economic migration requiring college degrees, language skills, and other requirements, negative perceptions of immigrants facilitate their exploitation by employers. For example, a 2023 University of Alberta research paper claims that they receive below-market wages and worse working conditions than Canadian-born workers. “Although skilled immigrants are highly qualified, professionally trained and economically motivated, they face individual-level challenges after arriving in Canada that restrain them from successfully integrating into the labour market,” says the paper.

Canada In Desperate Need

Solving issues related to education access are more solvable than changing societal attitudes, but carry their own pitfalls. Mr. Srinarayanathas says that for some skills, like nursing, newcomers can begin the application process from their home country and then write their exam in Canada to acquire the requisite credentials or designations. Despite there being pathways such as the Labour Market Impact Assessment process, most of the hospitals or healthcare institutions are hiring immigrants as nurses' aides so that they get the hours they need for their permanent residency. When they are working, they are not supposed to be studying under the LMIA process. However, studying is requisite to prep for the nursing exam to acquire a PR. What he means is that although there are certain paths, they are very complicated. This is counterintuitive, because if Canada was in desperate need of workers, the process would go very smoothly. Recognition of work experience outside Canada is also important, as many newcomers are overlooked despite their long-term presence in the labor market simply because this presence takes place abroad. Removing the Canadian work experience requirement allows newcomers to find jobs that match their credentials. Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) has become the first professional organization to eliminate this requirement, allowing newcomers with a technical background to work in engineering jobs. “By the time you get to writing the test, you can show that you already have a running start, which is actually really important in accelerating integration,” says Barata. “It’s a great test case that we could probably translate into other occupations.” According to him, Canada will not be able to maintain competitiveness or maintain quality of life, tax base and productivity in the long and short term without immigration. It is therefore essential to contribute to the integration of newcomers into the Canadian economy as quickly as possible.