The Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrant Youth report assesses how immigrant youth are faring in Canada’s labour market and how they have recovered from the pandemic. Download the full report below.
In the context of Canada’s persistently low birth rates and aging population, immigration is often regarded as a key solution for sustaining and raising labour force growth. Now, amidst record-low unemployment and over one million unfilled jobs, immigration continues to be a central discussion point among policy-makers and labour market experts.
In the 2010s, 84% of labour force growth came from immigration. Research consistently demonstrates that successful integration and positive labour market outcomes are strongly correlated with how long immigrants have been in the country and how young they were when they arrived.
This report assesses how immigrant youth — aged 15–24 years, referred to in this report interchangeably as young immigrants and immigrant youth — are faring in Canada’s labour market and how they have recovered from the pandemic.
We find that key indicators, including labour force participation, employment and wages, were initially lower but have improved post-pandemic and are getting closer to those of Canadian-born youth.
However, young immigrants were significantly more impacted by job loss at the height of the pandemic. Additionally, in general, young workers typically face greater barriers to employment. This is likely to be exacerbated for immigrant youth, especially among visible minority communities.
This report was prepared by Anne-Lore Fraikin and Bolanle Alake-Apata of LMIC and Shalini Sharma of the Canadian Council for Youth Prosperity.