Immigrants are crucial to Canada's long-term economic future, experts have been warning us for years. We desperately need newcomers. Alas, they don't need us so much anymore.
About 40% of our economic immigrants leave within a few years because they're so disappointed in the Canadian experience. Considering Canada takes in about 140,000 economic-class immigrants yearly (more than half of our annual intake of permanent residents), that's a staggering loss of talent.
Newcomers -- especially skilled workers and wealthy business-class immigrants -- simply have much higher expectations than they did in the past. If Canada doesn't live up to their dreams, well, they just move on. And Canada loses out.
"We have a very globalized world now so people will go where the jobs are," says Naomi Alboim, an immigration expert with the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University.
A generation ago, immigrants didn't necessarily expect to achieve the same economic success as they had enjoyed in their home countries, she notes. "Now, the highly, highly skilled people that we're trying to attract may not be prepared to delay their gratification to the second generation," she says.
If Canada lets them down, they just wave goodbye and look for opportunities elsewhere. It beats the soul-destroying humiliation of learning your foreign post-graduate degree only gets you a job driving cab or delivering pizza.
"People are leaving because we are not providing the kind of labour market integration that they had hoped for," says Alboim.
Canada's competing internationally for skilled workers and not doing a very good job, she says. Ironically, we're even competing for workers with nations we consider source countries for immigrants, like India and China, she adds. It's time we tweaked our selection criteria so more economic immigrants stay and fewer fall through the cracks into poverty and bitterness, says Alboim.
She's scheduled to speak at a conference in Toronto today entitled, The Race for Talent. Joining her in the discussion about the global competition for skilled workers will be experts from the U.S. and Australia.
The Australian panelist, Lesleyanne Hawthorne, recently wrote an illuminating paper comparing the labour market integration rates of economic migrants in Canada and Australia. She found that economic immigrants in Australia performed "indisputably better" than those in Canada over the past decade.
Why? Australia tightened up its selection criteria in 1999 to exclude people likely to have difficulty finding work. Pre-migration English language testing is mandatory and bonus points are awarded for high-demand occupations. As well, professionals must have credentials pre-screened by license bodies before they arrive.
In contrast, Canada accepts newcomers with limited language skills (no testing required) and doesn't cherry-pick people with high-demand skills, Hawthorne noted. The consequences are stark. In Australia, more than 80% of main economic applicants are employed within six months, with 60% using their credentials and skills. In Canada, however, it could take 20 to 30 years for economic migrants to catch up with comparably qualified Canadians, Hawthorne found.
No wonder many of our brightest immigrants leave. It's a big, wide world out there. Why sweep floors in snow-smothered Canada when you can be an engineer in sunny Australia?
Das Problem was ich hier in Canada sehe, ist das viele Leute die lange in einer Firma arbeiten einfach nach oben befoerdert werden. Egal ob sie die Qualification haben oder nicht. Und da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer!!! Die halten lieber diese Leute in hoeheren Positionen als gut qualifizierte Immigranten einzustellen. Und dann wundern wenn es mit der Firma bergab geht!!!
Das Kanada Forum
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03.10.2008 20:04
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