Fewer jobs for well-educated new immigrants

The recent study released by Community Foundations of Canada stated that recent immigrants to Canada with university degree are more than four times more likely to be unemployed than the Canadian-born workers with university degree. In 2009, the unemployment rates of the newcomers with university education was 13.9 percent while the unemployment rates of the Canadian-born counterparts was 3.4 percent. Moreover, it also found out that the recent immigrants without the university degree's unemployment is around 30 % higher than the Canadian-born counterparts.

Canadian economic centres and government responded back through the media by making statement regarding to the problem the Canadian economy is facing today. "It is disheartening to see such a significant gap between well-educated newcomers. Their experience in our labour market is dramatically different than that of non-immigrants with a comparable education level." said Patten, CFC's president. In addition, Fehr, the executive director of the immigrant Access Fund Society of Alberta said "Integrating newcomers into our workplace is necessity, not an option.. We need to act now". These 2 statements made by Patten and Fehr suggests the significance of the problematic issues Canada is facing todayand promises that Canada will be taking immediate initiatives towards this issue. According to the Community Foundations of Canada, they are intending to provide 10 key areas where the improvements are exigent to resolve the high unemployment rate between recent immigrants. Canada is expected to take actions immediately, as the study shows that the next year's net labour force growth will be relying on the immigrant labours.

It is very concerning to see the sky-high unemployment rates of the new immigrants, especially regarding to the fact that they have university education. Almsot 20% of the current Canadian residents are immigrants and they are bringing experience, technology, and labour force to this country. I myself is an immigrant and the reason I've came to Canada is to seek for better oppurtunities and life style. Moreover, I believe that this condition applies to almost every other immigrants and it is frustrating to see large amount of immigrants struggling to reach their original goal due to the unemployment. As Canada's study states, the immigrant's labour force is the main factor which will increase Canada's future net labour force growth and with such high unemployment rate, large improvement on net labour force growth wouldn't be possible.

Secondly, why is it that the unemployment rate of recent immigrants is 500% higher than the unemployment rate of Canadian-born citizens when they have same degree of education such as university degree? Although, the language might be an issue, the immigrants should be able to speak English fluently if they've gotten full university education. Therefore, the most reasonable answer to the significant unemployment rate difference between Immigrant workers and Canadian-born worker is prejudice. Although the Canadian Charter of Rights protect equality rights, I still believe some form of bias exist in the work force. For example, the employers would hire Canadian-born worker rather than an immigrant worker for a certain position if both workers have same or similar degree of education or experience. This is because the employer might believe that working with a compatriot is a much easier rather than a newcommer who the employer is less familiar with. In my opinion, in order to ensure the equal rights and to resolve the high unemployment rate problems, the employers and workforce in Canada should be tolerant and more open and accepting towards newcommers. It is important for employers to judge all workers equally without any biased preference.

On the whole, although, the high unemployment rate of immigrant workers are very frustrating, it still is great to hear promising words from economic centres and government of Canada. I would hope to see equal oppurtunities being distributed fairly too all workers including newcomers as soon as possible. Moreover, government and economic centres of Canada should put great amount of effort towards approperiate measures immediately to improve on 10 key areas where the improvement is urgent in order to create more oppurtunities and lower the unemployment rates of recent immigrant workers.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/10/04/immigrants-jobs-study.html