Immigrant Entrepreneurs as Job Creators: The Case of Canadian Private Incorporated Companies

Using data from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD), this paper has three objectives: (1) determining how the number of jobs created or destroyed by immigrant-owned private incorporated companies compared with that of firms with Canadian-born owners, (2) determining whether immigrant-owned firms were more likely than firms with Canadian-born owners to be high growth firms or rapidly shrinking firms, and (3) determining which immigrant characteristics were associated with a higher likelihood of immigrant-owned firms being high growth firms or rapidly shrinking firms.

This paper addresses gross job creation (jobs created by expanding continuing firms and entering firms), gross job destruction (jobs terminated by contracting continuing firms and exiting firms), and net job change (the difference between gross job creation and gross job destruction).