The employment rate in Canada among immigrants increased in 2023

Statistics Canada published a new study exploring links between the employment rate in Canada of core working-age immigrants and the duration of their stay in Canada. The data highlights that immigrants with over ten years of stay had the highest employment rates, while recent arrivals (within the last five years) had the lowest.

Specifically, employment rates were 77.8% for immigrants who landed five or fewer years ago, 81.9% for those who landed between 5 and 10 years ago, and 84.5% for those in Canada for over ten years. The overall employment rate for immigrants in 2023 was 82.6%, slightly lower than the 86.3% rate for Canadian-born individuals.

In December, there were more people working in professional, scientific, and technical services (+46,000; +2.4%), health care and social assistance (+16,000; +0.6%), and "other services" (including personal and repair services) (+12,000; +1.5%). Five industries experienced declines, led by wholesale and retail trade (-21,000; -0.7%) and manufacturing (-18,000; -1.0%).

In December, employment increased in four provinces, led by British Columbia (+18,000; +0.6%), while it decreased in Ontario (-48,000; -0.6%). Total hours worked increased by 0.4% in December and by 1.7% year on year.

On the other hand, in 2019 the employment rate for immigrants who arrived in Canada five years or less was 71.1%. Although this rate has also increased since dropping to 69.3% in 2020, the employment rate for this subgroup reduced slightly from 2022 (78%) to 2023 (77.8%).

The employment rate in Canada for core-aged Men and Women

Following two months of little change, employment among core-aged men (aged 25 to 54) increased by 25,000 (+0.4%) in December. For the third month in a row, employment among women of the same age group stayed virtually unchanged.

The employment rate for the core-aged population fell from January to December, as population growth (+2.9%; +446,000) outpaced employment growth (+1.9%; +243,000). The employment rate for women in this age group fell 0.8 percentage points from a record high of 82.2% in January to 81.4% in December. The rate for men aged 25 to 54 fell 0.8 percentage points between June (88.2%) and December (87.4%) in 2023. Despite recent labor market cooling, employment rates for both core-aged women(+2.1 percentage points) and core-aged men (+0.9 percentage points) remained higher than the average observed from 2017 to 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In December 2023, employment for young women aged 15 to 24 increased by 13,000 (+1.0%), while it remained virtually unchanged for young men. When compared to the other major demographic groups, youth employment fell more abruptly from January to December. Female youth rates dropped by 4.0 percentage points to 56.7%, while male youth rates dropped by 2.1 percentage points to 56.0%. Employment rates for both female (-2.4 percentage points) and male (-1.4 percentage points) youth were lower in December than they had been from 2017 to 2019.

In December 2023, employment among men aged 55 and older fell by 27,000 (-1.1%), the first significant drop since February 2023.

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