Is immigration helping us?
A stunning british study suggests that maybe it isn't
MARGRET KOPALA
Canwest News service
The Montreal Gazette
Published: Monday, April 21
Family-class immigrants, at 28.5 per cent of the total in 2002, are the other dominant set. Consisting of parents and grandparents (9.8 per cent) and “immediate” family members (18.7 per cent), these immigrants must be sponsored. Like parents and grandparents, the myriad cousins, uncles, in-laws, sisters and fiancs are then able to sponsor other “immediate” family members, leading to a phenomenon known as “chain” migration.
In other words, family-class immigrants meet no selection criteria. This means they often arrive with no language or job skills and a commensurately diminished capacity for paying taxes and social integration.
The economic success of immigrants is also affected by the rate at which they arrive. Having levelled out at 0.5 per cent of the population or less after the Second World War, it skyrocketed in the 1990s to today's one per cent – the highest in the world. These high rates, combined with slow economic growth in the 1990s, says Grubel, affected the income of new immigrants and those arriving in the previous decade who now had new competition for jobs. It was in this period, too, that the number of ethnic enclaves – defined as “census” regions where at least 30 per cent of the population is of a particular ethnic background – rose to 254 by 2001, from six in 1981.
Despite similar economic conditions during the same period, Australian immigrants fared better than Canada's. Migrants there must meet more stringent requirements for skills, credentials and language. Australia also denies entrants social benefits for two years and admits a higher proportion of work-age immigrants. Parents of principal applicants, for instance, may enter only if the majority of their independently qualified children already reside in Australia.
If economic realities matter, the new thinking on immigration may find its ultimate home among the stewards of today's labour market. After appearing before a Commons standing committee where he opposed employer exploitation of temporary workers, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour told me how, even in booming Alberta, there is no blanket shortage of labour.
“Overall, the market is tight but absolute shortages exist only in certain sectors. In others, like natural gas, forestry and agriculture, workers are being laid off,” Gil McGowan said
So why aren't we employing the people who are here, aboriginals for instance? Provincial training programs are what need fixing, he suggests. “Politicians have a cartoon understanding of what is happening in the labour market.”
Family-class immigrants, at 28.5 per cent of the total in 2002, are the other dominant set. Consisting of parents and grandparents (9.8 per cent) and “immediate” family members (18.7 per cent), these immigrants must be sponsored. Like parents and grandparents, the myriad cousins, uncles, in-laws, sisters and fiancs are then able to sponsor other “immediate” family members, leading to a phenomenon known as “chain” migration.
In other words, family-class immigrants meet no selection criteria. This means they often arrive with no language or job skills and a commensurately diminished capacity for paying taxes and social integration.
The economic success of immigrants is also affected by the rate at which they arrive. Having levelled out at 0.5 per cent of the population or less after the Second World War, it skyrocketed in the 1990s to today's one per cent – the highest in the world. These high rates, combined with slow economic growth in the 1990s, says Grubel, affected the income of new immigrants and those arriving in the previous decade who now had new competition for jobs. It was in this period, too, that the number of ethnic enclaves – defined as “census” regions where at least 30 per cent of the population is of a particular ethnic background – rose to 254 by 2001, from six in 1981.
Despite similar economic conditions during the same period, Australian immigrants fared better than Canada's. Migrants there must meet more stringent requirements for skills, credentials and language. Australia also denies entrants social benefits for two years and admits a higher proportion of work-age immigrants. Parents of principal applicants, for instance, may enter only if the majority of their independently qualified children already reside in Australia.
If economic realities matter, the new thinking on immigration may find its ultimate home among the stewards of today's labour market. After appearing before a Commons standing committee where he opposed employer exploitation of temporary workers, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour told me how, even in booming Alberta, there is no blanket shortage of labour.
“Overall, the market is tight but absolute shortages exist only in certain sectors. In others, like natural gas, forestry and agriculture, workers are being laid off,” Gil McGowan said
So why aren't we employing the people who are here, aboriginals for instance? Provincial training programs are what need fixing, he suggests. “Politicians have a cartoon understanding of what is happening in the labour market.”
