Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service. Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A new report from Statistics Canada reveals that only immigrants from Southeast Asia — particularly the Philippines — had employment rates similar to native-born Canadians in 2006. Immigrants were categorized into three groups for the report: very recent immigrants who landed between 2001 and 2006, recent immigrants who arrived between 1996 and 2001, and established immigrants who’d been in the country more than 10 years. Regardless of where they were born, the most recent arrivals in the core working age group of 25 to 54 had more difficulties finding jobs than those born in Canada.

People from Asia form the largest group of Canada’s immigrants, with an employment rate of 63.8% for the core working age bracket, compared to 83.1% for Canadian-born. However, the study found Southeast Asians had employment outcomes close to or better than native-born Canadians, regardless of when they arrived in Canada. Very recent immigrants from the Philippines had an unemployment rate of 5.4% in 2006, only slightly above the 4.9% rate for Canadian-born.

Even with Canada’s immigrant population shifting toward Asian countries over the last few decades, Europeans still represent the second-largest immigrant group. Their overall unemployment rate was 8.4%, but established European immigrants had slightly better job prospects than Canadian-born people.

Immigrants born in Latin America had unemployment rates 2.1% higher than native-born Canadians, the report found, while very recent immigrants from Africa struggled with unemployment rates more than four times higher than Canadian-born.

Immigrant men tend to do better than women, and young immigrants age 15 to 24 tend to have lower employment rates than their Canadian-born counterparts. However, young immigrants have higher rates of school attendance.

The vast majority of immigrants settle in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, the study notes, but their employment success varies depending on their province.

In Ontario, Asia- and African-born immigrants had higher unemployment rates while those from Latin America and Europe had job prospects similar to native-born Canadians. Immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa have unemployment rates two to four times higher than Canadian-born Quebecers, while Europeans fare about as well. In B.C., Asian and European immigrants have labour outcomes similar to those of native-born Canadians.