Since the early 2000s, a number of public policy and national economic changes have occurred to influence the industrial sectors in which new immigrants can find employment. For instance, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (2001) strengthened permanent residence provisions that emphasize many immigrants’ human capital characteristics for admission. In addition, the economy overall experienced innumerable shifts and changes brought about by the 2008 global recession, which in turn has influenced employment opportunities.
A number of important questions emanate from the changes. Have employers responded to the shifts with respect to the hiring of newcomers? If so, how are the changes manifest in local economies? Are new immigrants being hired into particular industrial sectors? Are they being hired in even greater numbers in some sectors that have traditionally hired immigrants? Are there differences between women and men with respect to industrial sectors that have seen a growth or decline in hiring over time? Are there differences between large and small metropolitan areas with respect to the industrial sectors in which immigrants find employment? This project examines these questions using labour force data from two Canadian censuses – 2016 and 2006.Two basic objectives guide the analysis: to investigate whether a shift has occurred over time in the number of recent immigrants employed in industrial sectors and to evaluate basic working conditions experienced by recent immigrants in these sectors. The project considers the situation of immigrants as a group, as well as the specific experiences of women and men particularly in recognition of gender segmentation in employment and pay inequality in the labour market (Pelletier, Patterson and Moyser 2019; Conference Board of Canada 2013).
The analysis is largely restricted to individuals working full time and full year in order to facilitate meaningful comparisons between cities, as well as between women and men. Part-time employment may be more common in some metropolitan areas than others, and it is well known that women are more likely than men to be employed part-time; hence, the need is clear to restrict analysis to full-time workers in order to enable fair comparisons. The intent is not to diminish the significance of part-time work. “Recent immigrants” are defined here as individuals who attained permanent residence status and arrived in Canada within 10 years of a census. The focus of attention is on a small number of metropolitan areas in Ontario and Québec in which an important number of recent immigrants settle: Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau and Montréal. A metropolitan scale of analysis recognizes the fact that newcomers face the challenge of finding employment in specific urban economies, each of which holds a particular mix of industries and opportunities.
Phase 1 – Setting the Context: Change over Time. To evaluate whether a shift has occurred over time in the industrial sectors that employ recent immigrants, 2016 and 2006 census data are used. The analysis begins by calculating the percentage of total employment for recent immigrants by industrial sector in 2016 and 2006. The analysis of 2016 data is restricted to individuals who have been permanent residents since 2006, while that using 2006 data includes individuals who attained permanent residence between 1996 and 2005. Once the percentage values are calculated, industrial sectors can be identified in which there has been a change in the proportion of recent immigrants hired. Separate analyses will also be conducted for women and men in each city.
Phase 2 - Evaluating Concentration. To evaluate the degree of recent immigrant concentration in a particular industrial sector, a set of concentration indices will be created. The indices are calculated based on the percent of recent immigrants in each industrial sector in 2016 compared with the percent of recent immigrants working in the same industrial sector in 2006. In essence, the analysis will allow identification of whether immigrants are more or less concentrated than earlier arrivals in particular industrial sectors, and it will highlight the industrial sectors in which new immigrants are more or less likely to find employment. For example, recent immigrants in 2016 may be more concentrated in a particular sector (e.g., retailing) compared to earlier immigrants who may have been more strongly concentrated in another sector (e.g., manufacturing). Concentration indices are a summary measure and indicate the ways in which newcomer employment by sector has changed over time.
Phase 3 – Working Conditions. An examination of employment by industrial sector over time highlights important changes in both the industrial structure of particular cities and the sectors in which newcomers find employment. Phase 2 analysis does not, however, provide information about employment conditions and whether these have changed over time for recent immigrants. The census provides limited information about the conditions of work as it is not primarily an employment survey; nevertheless, there are several indicators that merit consideration. First, it is possible to determine the number of individuals employed on a part-time versus full-time basis by industrial sector for recent immigrants and the Canadian-born population. Although most of the analysis in the project focuses exclusively on full-time and full-year employees, the third component will consider whether recent immigrants are more or less likely to be in full-time employment by industrial sector compared to the Canadian-born workforce.
Another key indicator of working conditions is the type of occupation held by workers in a particular industry. For example, there is a considerable difference between working as a hospital administrator versus a hospital nursing assistant — even though both occupations would be classified under the same industrial sector. In this project, industrial sectors of employment are highly disaggregated; consequently, occupational categories will necessarily have to be highly aggregated in order to maintain a sufficient number of individuals for analysis.
Principal Investigator:
- Brian Ray (University of Ottawa) bray@uottawa.ca
Co-Investigators:
- Anyck Dauphin (Université du Québec en Outaouais)
- Gerry Kerr (University of Windsor's Odette School of Business)
- Valerie Preston (York University)
Research Assistant:
- Amirreza Farshchin (University of Ottawa)
Community Partners:
- York Region
- Hire Immigrants Ottawa
