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THE OTTAWA CITIZEN ------------CANADA
---------THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1999
A5
New arrivals to Canada struggle to succeed
Immigrants
today face more barriers, research data show
BY COLIN GREY
■ Even as the federal government launches an initiative to bring more immigrants into the country, census data indicate that growing numbers of newcomers struggle to succeed in our economy.
■ In the face of other barriers, like the difficulty of getting professional certification in Canada, or finding employers willing to accept a job applicant with a foreign degree, that means more Indian-born accountants end up as taxi drivers, and more Iranian-born dentists become cooks. "They're getting knocked down to the bottom," said Mr. Reitz. Mr. Reitz's findings generally agree with those of other researchers showing immigrants today take longer to integrate into the economy.
■ The findings show, researchers say, that the government's goal of bringing in 300,000 immigrants to Canada in the year 2000 ignores one of the chief problems with our immigration policy: how immigrants fare after they arrive. "If you think of Canada as a company: when you hire new workers, most big corporations have orientation programs. They don't just turn the new employee loose in the organization and say to them, 'Well, find something useful to do," Mr. Reitz said. "Especially if they're from some far away place.
■ A government study published in May shows 70.2 per cent of immigrants with a university degree who landed between 1980 and 1995 had a job in 1995, earning an average salary of $30,847.
■ New arrivals to Canada face a number of obstacles, and the government does not do enough to help them. In 1981, immigrants who arrived during the previous five years earned salaries worth 85 per cent those of native Canadian men. Today, they are paid on average 65 per cent what Canadian-born men earn.
■ Nancy Worsfold, executive director of Ottawa Carleton Immigrant Services, expressed little surprise at the findings, saying she worked with several immigrants who cannot find work in their fields for a number of reasons, including discrimination. "My observation is that a white Canadian with a British degree doesn't have -a lot of problems, but a third world immigrant with a British degree may have a lot of problems," she said.
FULL STORY :-
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN ------------CANADA
---------THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1999
A5
New arrivals to Canada struggle to succeed
Immigrants
today face more barriers, research data show
BY COLIN GREY
Even as the federal government launches an initiative to bring more immigrants into the country, census data indicate that growing numbers of newcomers struggle to succeed in our economy.
The highly skilled immigrants that the government most wants have a harder time competing with today's highly educated Canadians than they did 15 years ago, according to research by Jeffrey Reitz, a University of Toronto sociologist who has researched census data on immigrants.
In the face of other barriers, like the difficulty of getting professional certification in Canada, or finding employers willing to accept a job applicant with a foreign degree, that means more Indian-born accountants end up as taxi drivers, and more Iranian-born dentists become cooks.
"They're getting knocked down to the bottom," said Mr. Reitz.
Mr. Reitz's findings generally agree with those of other researchers showing immigrants today take longer to integrate into the economy.
"From 1986 until the mid-1990s the new immigrants who came were taking much longer to catch up than before," said Don Devoretz, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University who specializes in immigration issues. "In some cases it looks like they're not going to catch up."
The findings show, researchers say, that the government's goal of bringing in 300,000 immigrants to Canada in the year 2000 ignores one of the chief problems with our immigration policy: how immigrants fare after they arrive.
"If you think of Canada as a company: when you hire new workers, most big corporations have orientation programs. They don't just turn the new employee loose in the organization and say to them, 'Well, find something useful to do," Mr. Reitz said. "Especially if they're from some far away place.
Like other Western countries, Canada uses a point system to weigh its immigrant-selection process in favour of skilled and educated foreigners considered most likely to get jobs once they get here.
A government study published in May shows 70.2 per cent of immigrants with a university degree who landed between 1980 and 1995 had a job in 1995, earning an average salary of $30,847. In contrast, 68.5 per cent of immigrants with trade certificates or non-university diplomas had jobs, earning $24,225 annually.
But those numbers do not show the whole story. New arrivals to Canada face a number of obstacles, and the government does not do enough to help them.
In 1981, immigrants who arrived during the previous five years earned salaries worth 85 per cent those of native Canadian men. Today, they are paid on average 65 per cent what Canadian-born men earn.
Immigrant women in 1981 earned 73 per cent what native Canadian women earned. In 1996, they earned 60 per cent of what Canadian women earned.
The statistical picture for all age groups and races is similar, Mr. Reitz said, despite immigrants' overall higher education than a decade ago.
"This is bad news no matter how you look at it," Mr. Reitz wrote in a paper published last year. "Lower immigrant earnings inevitably translate into higher rates of poverty. They hamper settlement efforts by immigrants and put pressure on social expenditures funded by the general population."
He does not attribute the problem to discrimination. Instead, he blames institutional changes, such as greater education among native Canadians, which he said places immigrants at a greater disadvantage than 15 years ago.
Nancy Worsfold, executive director of Ottawa Carleton Immigrant Services, expressed little surprise at the findings, saying she worked with several immigrants who cannot find work in their fields for a number of reasons, including discrimination.
"My observation is that a white Canadian with a British degree doesn't have -a lot of problems, but a third world immigrant with a British degree may have a lot of problems," she said.
"What we're seeing at the moment is significant barriers to foreign-trained professionals and tradespeople in accessing appropriate employment to their skill level,"she added.
In a particularly egregious example, she said a female Iranian dentist she knew had to fly to Halifax to take her test to be certified as a dentist. In order to perform the procedures required for the exam, she had to pay to bring along her own patients by plane. "It's just an example of how it's not easy to get access into the controlled professions," she said.