Background

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With an aging workforce and a low fertility rate, Canadian governments have increasingly turned to immigration as a way of trying to match the skills and knowledge with our labour market demand. Highly educated immigrants have been sought to help drive Canada's economy.

In 2007, landed immigrants aged 25 to 54 were more likely to have a university education than the Canadian born (37% versus 22%). The difference was even more pronounced among the cohort who immigrated very recently: more than half of immigrants (54%) who landed since 2002 had a university education.

In the first report on the 2006 labour market of immigrants based on the Labour Force Survey, it was found that, while those born in Canada and who had higher educational attainment had a high employment rate and a low unemployment rate, it was not the same situation for very recent immigrants (i.e.,those who landed within the previous five years). For example, very recent immigrants with a university degree had an unemployment rate similar to those very recent immigrants with only high school education. Furthermore, the unemployment rate of university educated very recent immigrants was four times that of similarly-educated Canadian born. On the other hand, the labour market outcomes of established immigrants – those who landed more than 10 years earlier – by education level were similar to that of the Canadian born. These findings indicate that, at least among the group of immigrants who landed most recently, higher education did not result in a greater likelihood of being employed in 2006.

A second report examined the 2006 labour market outcomes by country of birth. One of the main findings was that immigrants from the Philippines enjoyed employment and unemployment rates similar to Canadian born, regardless of period of landing. These comparable results, however, were more an exception than the rule, as other groups generally had some difficulties securing employment, especially in their first five years following landing. Nonetheless, for immigrants from most countries of birth who had landed more than 10 years earlier, their employment and unemployment rates were comparable to that of the Canadian born. Immigrants born in Africa, however, regardless of period of landing, had employment rates were that lower than, and unemployment rates that were higher than that of the Canadian born.

A third report provided an update on the labour market outcomes of immigrants based on 2007 data.   While there were a large number of full-time employment gains for immigrants from 2006 to 2007, the employment rate gap with the Canadian born widened.  Most of the growth for immigrants was among established immigrants, particularly those in Quebec and Alberta, and for immigrants with a university degree.

Some of the reasons associated with the difficulties experienced by immigrant were revealed in the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), released in 2005. In that survey, very recent immigrants identified the following factors as barriers to integrate into the labour market: lack of knowledge of one of the official languages; lack of Canadian work experience; lack of knowledge of the local labour market; and lack of credential recognition by their potential employer.¹ A number of Canadian studies over the past 10 years have also pointed to concerns over the transferability and recognition of education obtained outside of Canada; specifically, high levels of education obtained in some foreign countries are not as readily accepted in the Canadian labour market as others.^2,3,4,5,6  Some of this research argues that the indications of problems with the recognition of foreign credentials is not just a particular situation in Canada, but rather are seen in other immigrant destinations, such as the United States and Europe.

In this paper, fourth in a series of analytical reports, the relationship between the region where an immigrant received their highest level of postsecondary education and their 2007 labour market outcomes, by time since landing, is examined. This report first examines the labour market outcomes (with a focus on employment rates) of university-educated immigrants with degrees from Canada, then those with degrees from foreign countries. Next, these results are analyzed for the three largest provincial destinations for immigrants (Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec). Finally, the labour market outcomes of immigrants with postsecondary certificates or diplomas are examined, based on where they obtained these credentials. This report sets out to answer the following questions: Do the labour market outcomes vary by region or country of postsecondary education? What about immigrants with a Canadian postsecondary education; are their labour market outcomes similar to the Canadian born?

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Notes

1. Grondin, Chantal. 2007. Knowledge of Official Languages Among New Immigrants: How Important Is It in the Labour Market? Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 89-615-XIE. Ottawa. (accessed May 16, 2008).
2. Thompson, Eden Nicole. "Immigrant Occupational Skill Outcomes and the Role of Region-Specific Human Capital". Working Paper Series no 00-04. Vancouver: Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis (RIIM), p.28.
3. Bauder, Harald. 2003. "'Brain Abuse', or the Devaluation of Immigrant Labour in Canada". Antipode. Vol. 35(4), p. 699-717.
4. Sweetman, Arthur. 2004. " Immigrant Source Country School Quality and Labour Market Outcomes". Analytical Studies Research Paper Series, Catalogue No. 11F0019MIE – No. 234. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
5. Reitz, Jeffrey G. 2005. "Tapping Immigrants' Skills: New Directions for Canadian Immigration Policy in the Knowledge Economy", IRPP Choices, Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2005.
6. Li, Peter S. 2001. "The Market Worth of Immigrants' Educational Credentials". Canadian Public Policy Vol. XXVII, No. 1, p. 23-38.