Have you ever imagined the unemployment rate for immigrants who landed in your country hitting a record low? According to a Statistics Canada March Labor Force Survey, this has been the situation for Canada’s immigrants within the past five years.
After going through this survey’s newly released report, we realized that it captured Canada’s labor market situations during the week starting on 13th March to 19th March. Canada’s provinces were easing public health restrictions while proof-of-vaccination requirements and all capacity limits were lifted in Manitoba, Quebec, Alberta, and Ontario during the reference week.
And would you guess to what extent Canada’s unemployment fell? Overall, it fell 0.2 percentage points to 5.3%, now the lowest rate on record since 1976, when comparable data became available. According to what we gathered from Statistics Canada data, it calculates the unemployment rate by the unemployed populace as the labor force’s percentage.
What about individuals interested in a job but who didn’t look for one? For the first time, Canada’s adjusted unemployment rate was also below its pre-pandemic level at 7.2%.
Looking at Canada’s core-aged immigrants, the unemployment rate was 8.3% for those who landed in the country within the past five years, with 4.5% for the Canadian-born workers. The former was the lowest since 2006, when comparable data was available. You realize that the 3.8 percentage points gap is similar to that of the pre-pandemic March 2019.
Employment Growth Outpacing Population Growth
Luckily we can project light at the end of Canada’s employment rate tunnel. In March, Canada’s overall employment rose by 73,000 thanks to gains in full-time work. Since September 2021, employment gains have outpaced Canada’s population growth, with employment growth of 2.4% compared to population growth (aged 15 and older) of 0.8%.
But you would wonder what exactly is facilitating this entry of foreign workers. High job vacancies coupled with fast employment growth and a slow population growth rate are the likely causes. After all, opening the gate to international talent is one technique of counteracting downward pressure on the labor market.
