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Calgary holds greatest jobs promise |
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By Ethan Caleb »
Prospective immigrants worried about job prospects in Canada might want
to give cities like Montreal and Vancouver a miss and head for Calgary
or the Atlantic provinces instead. A new Statistics Canada analysis, which tracked immigrants aged 25 to
44 over two years, singled out Calgary, Alberta, as having the best
record among all the major cities for providing employment to
newcomers.
The Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward
Island and Newfoundland and Labrador also got high marks - immigrants
to these provinces were the most likely to work in their intended
occupation.
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver continued to feature as the three biggest draws for newcomers, but it was the fourth most popular destination, Calgary, where immigrants were most likely to find a job quickly.
Among Calgary's newcomers, the vast majority (88 per cent) had worked at least one job since landing. This was not only the highest proportion among the major urban areas in the country, but also higher than the national average of 80 per cent.
This compares with an employment rate of 61 per cent in Vancouver and 65 per cent in Montreal for immigrants who had lived in Canada for two years.
Vancouver's difficult job market is further illustrated by an employment rate of just 42 per cent for those who had been in the country for six months. Two-third's of the 14,400 newcomers surveyed were university educated.
While Alberta's hot economy is behind newcomers' success with jobs in Calgary, it is the Atlantic provinces that score when it comes to delivering employment in immigrants' preferred fields.
Nearly six in ten of new immigrants who worked in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland & Labrador found employment in an occupation that they intended to enter compared with four in 10 nationally.
Among other findings of the study:
- Toronto was the destination of choice for many newcomers, in fact, 43% of all newcomers called Toronto home. A large majority (84%) of newcomers in Toronto had worked in at least one job since landing, higher than the national average of 80%. As well, most of the 39,100 Toronto immigrants who had worked, found their first job soon after arrival.
- Ontario was home to more than half (55%) of new immigrants to Canada. Nearly half of them were skilled worker principal applicants and the vast majority arrived with high levels of education. In fact, nearly three quarters (72%) of immigrants to Ontario were university educated, the highest proportion in the country.
- Montréal was the second most attractive destination for newcomers, home to 16,600 recent immigrants. Overall, Quebec was the second most popular province of residence for newcomers, but newcomers in Quebec faced a tougher labour market than those residing in other provinces.
- Ottawa-Gatineau had the highest proportion of university educated immigrants in the country, three-quarters arrived with university education. One half of newcomers who had worked in Ottawa-Gatineau found a job in their intended occupation, this was the highest proportion among any other major urban area in the country.
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