by Peggy Curran, The Gazette
Quebec's immigration policies may lean in favour of newcomers from North Africa and other French-speaking regions, but the Old World has a commanding head start on the wage front, says a study by researchers at Université du Montréal. And industrial relations professor Brahim Boudarbat said even in Quebec, it pays off enormously when a newcomer already speaks both French and English. While knowing one of Canada's official languages - in Quebec, it doesn't appear to matter which - may boost earnings by seven percent, being able to get by in both can bolster income by 15 per cent. Findings by Boudarbat and PhD student Maude Boulet show today's immigrants not only earn less than the average Canadian-born worker, they've been steadily losing ground when compared with what previous waves of immigrants received when they landed in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They are both better educated and poorer than the people who came before them.
When education and work experience are the same, their research indicates men from Africa and Central and South America have their work cut out keeping pace with traditional sources of immigration - newcomers from Britain and the United States can expect average earnings roughly 15 per cent higher. "Male immigrants from Africa and the Americas suffer salary discrimination in Quebec and Ontario." Meanwhile, female immigrants often have trouble getting employers to even recognize either degrees or training earned elsewhere. Why? Boudarbat cites built-in factors, such as the refusal to recognize foreign doctors. But he said there may also be unspoken biases against diplomas from schools a potential employer has never heard of before. He proposes steps be taken to counter this, by making it easier for foreign-trained professionals to get their certification or by doing more to court and keep foreign students who come here to study. Boudarbat and Boulet used census data from 1981, 1991 and 2001, tracking immigrants' earnings, based on factors such as when they arrived and where they live, country and language of origin, education, job experience and swings in the economy. Their sample group included full-time workers in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, the three provinces which receive 89.5 per cent of Canada's immigrants.
The researchers found new Canadians are generally better educated and more highly-skilled than those who arrived three decades ago. Yet they face a host of obstacles, such as employers' refusal to recognize credentials or work experience abroad. "Immigrants who have been selected at least in part on the basis of their professional experience often find themselves back at square one because that experience is not recognized by the labour market," they write in their report, published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Between 1960 and 1990, Boudarbat and Boulet found wages of newly arrived male immigrants to Quebec sagged by 27 per cent, compared to an 18 per cent drop in Ontario and a 31 per cent drop in B.C. Female immigrants to Quebec saw their income slip by 15.4 per cent. Since 1990, a period when Quebec has increasingly used its own selection criteria to target skilled workers from French-speaking and Latin American countries, real dollar earnings for immigrants slipped by 8 per cent.
Quebec's immigration policies may lean in favour of newcomers from North Africa and other French-speaking regions, but the Old World has a commanding head start on the wage front, says a study by researchers at Université du Montréal. And industrial relations professor Brahim Boudarbat said even in Quebec, it pays off enormously when a newcomer already speaks both French and English. While knowing one of Canada's official languages - in Quebec, it doesn't appear to matter which - may boost earnings by seven percent, being able to get by in both can bolster income by 15 per cent. Findings by Boudarbat and PhD student Maude Boulet show today's immigrants not only earn less than the average Canadian-born worker, they've been steadily losing ground when compared with what previous waves of immigrants received when they landed in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They are both better educated and poorer than the people who came before them.
When education and work experience are the same, their research indicates men from Africa and Central and South America have their work cut out keeping pace with traditional sources of immigration - newcomers from Britain and the United States can expect average earnings roughly 15 per cent higher. "Male immigrants from Africa and the Americas suffer salary discrimination in Quebec and Ontario." Meanwhile, female immigrants often have trouble getting employers to even recognize either degrees or training earned elsewhere. Why? Boudarbat cites built-in factors, such as the refusal to recognize foreign doctors. But he said there may also be unspoken biases against diplomas from schools a potential employer has never heard of before. He proposes steps be taken to counter this, by making it easier for foreign-trained professionals to get their certification or by doing more to court and keep foreign students who come here to study. Boudarbat and Boulet used census data from 1981, 1991 and 2001, tracking immigrants' earnings, based on factors such as when they arrived and where they live, country and language of origin, education, job experience and swings in the economy. Their sample group included full-time workers in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, the three provinces which receive 89.5 per cent of Canada's immigrants.
The researchers found new Canadians are generally better educated and more highly-skilled than those who arrived three decades ago. Yet they face a host of obstacles, such as employers' refusal to recognize credentials or work experience abroad. "Immigrants who have been selected at least in part on the basis of their professional experience often find themselves back at square one because that experience is not recognized by the labour market," they write in their report, published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Between 1960 and 1990, Boudarbat and Boulet found wages of newly arrived male immigrants to Quebec sagged by 27 per cent, compared to an 18 per cent drop in Ontario and a 31 per cent drop in B.C. Female immigrants to Quebec saw their income slip by 15.4 per cent. Since 1990, a period when Quebec has increasingly used its own selection criteria to target skilled workers from French-speaking and Latin American countries, real dollar earnings for immigrants slipped by 8 per cent.
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