Languages at work
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Immigrants who use non-official languages on the job are concentrated in certain industries. Food services, building services, residential construction, farming, clothing manufacturing and grocery stores make up some of the 20 industries employing 40% of these immigrants. Full-service restaurants and limited-service eating places together employ 10% of these workers.
Though many of the jobs are unskilled, some—such as teaching, sales, and real estate agency work—require excellent communication skills. Allophone immigrants may hold jobs in these industries precisely because they speak a non-official language and can reach growing immigrant markets. However, few immigrants employed in sales or real estate speak a non-official language to the exclusion of English or French.
With time in Canada, immigrants become less concentrated in the industries typical of recently arrived immigrants working in non-official languages.
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