Canada Shifts Immigration Focus to Favour High-Earning Global Talent
Highly paid foreign nationals working in Canada – including doctors, engineers and programmers – will now have an advantage when applying for permanent residence.
Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab announced changes to immigration rules Friday that will see applicants to the Express Entry system receive additional points if they have worked for at least a year in a high-wage job in Canada or have a high-paid job offer.
The extra points will increase the chances of skilled foreign nationals, such as academics and people working in high tech, getting an invitation from the Immigration Department to apply for permanent residence.
The move follows calls in recent years from economists to focus immigration on the highly skilled workers that Canada needs to fuel growth and plug labour gaps, rather than large numbers of unskilled workers.
Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC World Markets, said Friday he agrees that the focus for immigration “should be on high-skilled individuals.”
“But it also needs to focus on skilled labour such as trades where Canada has a chronic shortage,” he said in an e-mail. “If one of the goals of housing policy is to reduce the cost of building, such a move will be in the right direction toward improving housing affordability.”
A high-wage occupation is defined by the Immigration Department as a job where the median wage is at least 1.3 times the national median wage for all workers, which is currently about $57,000.
Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, said the change by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is “a smart move.”
“Selecting immigrants with proven earning power in Canada is the most direct way to raise our average human capital and, with it, living standards,” he said in an e-mail.
“But the rule is pegged to occupational wages, and pay varies a lot within occupations, with newcomers often clustered at the bottom. If the goal is to reward high earners, why not look at what immigrants actually earn rather than what their occupation’s median worker earns?”
The changes to the Express Entry ranking system, IRCC said, are designed to better align with Canada’s economic and labour-market needs.
“Canada is competing globally for people with the skills we need to build a prosperous economy and stronger public services,” said Ms. Metlege Diab in a statement.
“These changes will help us identify, attract and retain the skilled newcomers who are best positioned to succeed in Canada, while making the Express Entry system more targeted and responsive to our labour-market needs.”
Foreign nationals seeking permanent residence under Express Entry must meet the requirements of at least one of three Federal High Skilled immigration programs to be entered into a pool of candidates for selection.
Applicants are assigned a score based on a number of criteria including age, official-language proficiency, education and work experience. Top-ranking candidates are invited to apply for permanent residence when draws are announced throughout the year.
Henry Lotin, a former federal economist and founder of the consulting firm Integrative Trade and Economics, who specializes in immigration policy, said giving additional points to those in higher-paying occupations is a “positive and useful step by IRCC in better recognizing the value in retaining the talent of those non-permanent residents already in Canada.”
He said that resident foreign nationals already have housing and are familiar with the Canadian job market, and their numbers would not be any additional strain on social services, and health care.
“Without permanent status,” he said, “many qualified applicants are unable to gain employment closer to their skill level, support their family properly, sign leases, and those without the family resources to do so otherwise, discouraged from buying a home or otherwise investing in Canada. Canada’s productivity suffers.”
But advocates for migrant workers said the changes fail to recognize the contribution of low-paid foreign nationals to Canada’s economy. Migrant Workers Alliance for Change said migrant workers are doing essential but underpaid work in personal care, agriculture, food processing, cleaning and other sectors.
“Doctors, engineers and electricians deserve permanent residence. So do the women caring for our children and aging parents, the farmworkers growing our food and the workers preparing it. We cannot say that health care is essential and then deny care workers a future here because they are underpaid,” said Syed Hussan, MWAC executive director.
There is steep competition for permanent-residence places and a limited number, set each year under the federal government’s immigration levels plan.
Ottawa has in recent years clamped down on both permanent and temporary immigration after a public backlash over a shortage of affordable housing.
Ms. Metlege Diab is set to announce by early December Canada’s targets for permanent and temporary residents over the next three years.
In last year’s three-year immigration levels plan, announced as part of the budget, Ottawa halved the number of international students it aims to admit in the next three years, while freezing the number of permanent residents to 380,000 a year for three years, down from 395,000 in 2025.
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
