The pandemic caused economic challenges for recent Canadian immigrants. This is the conclusion of the latest Statistics Canada report. Canadian immigrants have played a crucial role in their economic contributions. Additionally, Canadian immigrants were subject to disadvantages due to the pandemic compared to the Canadian-born population.
The pandemic caused economic challenges after the lockdown
According to Statistics Canada’s latest report, at the start of Covid-19, recent immigrants had greater chances of employment than workers born in Canada because of the pandemic.
The main reason is that Canadian immigrants served a short duration and jobs with reduced wages, including the food and accommodation services industry.
According to the 2020 study, Statistics Canada stated that around 31 percent of recent immigrants with employment in February 2020 had worked for less than one year in their respective job positions. Additionally, recent immigrants working in occupations offering low wages account for 22 percent. The hourly wages remained equal to less than two-thirds of the median yearly salary of 2019. Contrarily, these numbers accounted for 15 and 12 percent of workers born in Canada. Evidently, the employment structure’s outcome emerged in 2020. Additionally, the transition rate to non-employment gained momentum at 13.5 percent for those workers born in Canada. On the other hand, recent immigrants accounted for 17.3 percent.
Switching to Canadian Emergency Response Benefit
The pandemic caused great chaos, with more job losses. Consequently, recent immigrants had no option but to submit an application for the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit in 2020. Moreover, it implies more challenges related to economic integration during the pandemic phase.
Two major groups which massively underwent economic challenges during the lockdown were: workers and low-wage workers. However, these two groups primarily represent Canadian immigrants who were supposed to attain CERB payments.
As a matter of fact, over 55.3 percent of all workers with minimum earnings of $5,000 in 2019 acquired only 10 percent of the distribution for employment income in 2019. They even received the CERB in 2020. Similarly, 66.6 percent of the workers in the accommodation and food services industry earned approximately $5000 in 2019. They, too received the CERB the following year.
Reduced median entry wages for recent Canadian immigrants
According to data, the median entry wage for immigrants entering Canada in 2019 was reduced by 6.5 ($30,000) percent compared to what it was in 2018. On the other hand, the entire Canadian population experienced a positive result due to Canadian’s median wage rising by 0.8 percent between 2019 and 2020.
The median entry wages witnessed a considerable decline, significantly due to immigrant women, with 11.1 percent from 2019 to 2020. The immigrant men population saw a decline of 5.2 percent, while the Canadian women observed a reduction of $10 Year-On-Year.
Main economic applicants experienced better results compared to immigrants
Even though immigrants usually had a massive impact by causing economic damage related to a pandemic, a few groups didn’t have to suffer much.
For instance, talking of the principal economic applicants, Canadian immigrants will admit to Canada based on their experience, skills, and financial contribution.
Statistics Canada states that the principal applicants underwent the lowest decline in median entry wage among all other categories of immigration applications between 2019 and 2020, accounting for only 3 percent. However, immigrants under family sponsorship and refugee class witnessed reductions, increasing by 10 percent. The percentage for family sponsorship immigrants accounts for 13.4 percent, whereas refugee-class immigrants account for 11.9 percent.
Main economic applicants also observed growth in their median wages between 2019 and 2020. The median wage grew from $52,8000 to $54,800, with an increase of 3.8 percent.
However, the other admission categories underwent a major decline in median wages. For instance, for refugees, it went down by 7.9 percent, dependents and spouses of economic immigrants saw a decline of 4.3 percent, and immigrants under Family Sponsorship went down by 3 percent.
The pandemic caused economic challenges- immigrants who suffered lesser impact due to Covid-19
Those immigrants who acquired knowledge of languages, such as French and English, suffered less due to the pandemic. Even those immigrants with previous work experience remained less impacted by it.
The immigrant’s median entry wages with language proficiency increased by 0.3 percent between 2019 and 2020. Contrarily, those immigrants without knowledge of these languages also witnessed a decline of $2,900 year-on-year basis in the median entry wage. This accounts for 18.6 percent. Additionally, immigrants with knowledge of just a single language accounted for at least a 6.5 percent decline.
Similarly, Canadian immigrants also gained a benefit, and these immigrants had prior work experience. Besides this, those without any previous experience underwent a significant decline compared to the prior admission cohort.
Economic recovery resulted in an improvement in employment and total income
Overall, the total incomes and employment have only improved with time since the pandemic got over.
The total median income for Canadian immigrants rose by 9.3 percent between 2019 and 2020. Moreover, even after a reduction in median entry wages, the amalgamation of the wages and the government emergency supports like CERB resulted in a $2,800 increase in the median income from 2019 to 2020. The yearly increase accounts for the overall growth in the median income for all Canadians in the specific period, that is, 6.9 percent.
Furthermore, Statistics Canada claims that employment resumed to the pre-pandemic level toward the latter part of 2021. For the workers born in Canada, the employment rate improved by 2.2 percent. On the other hand, the employment rate for immigrants increased by 4.8 percent in ten years or lesser than that. Apparently, the employment rates for recent Canadian immigrants resumed faster. This is compared to Canadian-born workers since the time of economic recovery in Canada.
