🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <D5AqD0.2xL@freenet.carleton.ca>, ar231@FreeNet.Carleton.CA
(Karen Gordon) wrote:

> IMMIGRANTS' JOBLESS RATE 'MUCH HIGHER'   

> The rates for immigrants from OTHER PARTS of the world, however, were:
> 60% for those from Southeast Asia,
> 57% from Eastern Europe and Africa,
> 56% from the Caribbean,
> 54% from Southern Asia,
> 53% from Central and South America, and Eastern Asia, and
> 46% from Western Asia and the Middle East.
> 
> **
> "Because recent immigrants are less likely than people born in Canada to
> be employed, they contribute less to employment growth than to population
> increase," the report says.
> 
> Meanwhile, the majority of immigrant workers hold full time jobs though
> they were less likely to be self-employed than Canadian-born workers.


What's your point Karen? Recent immigrants from non-English speaking
countries have greater difficulty finding work in a stagnant economy than
white, English/French-speaking immigrants. Does this surprise you? A
comparison of employment rates for recent (how recent?) immigrants and
immigrants who have been here >5 years would have been more instructive.
My guess is that after five years there would have been no difference in
employment rates. Given that Canada often refuses to recognize the
credentials of newcomers (resulting in engineers and doctors driving
cabs), the need to learn one of the two official languages, and the lag
time it takes to make contacts and learn the system, these figures are not
surprising (particularly given the fact that the difference is less than
10% in most cases, and is likely not even statistically significant for
the first three groups you listed above).

I certainly don't think that these figures by themselves support he notion
that immigrants are a drain on our economy. If that was your intent, you
failed to make your point.

Pearse

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               look like nails that need banging in"

Pearse Ward
wardp@herald.usask.ca

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