New Study Reveals How Refugees Fare In Canada

Canada has always welcomed refugees with open arms, partly because of their friendly immigration policies and partly because of their emphasis on humanitarianism.

All migrants ultimately contribute in some way or the other to the Canadian labor market. The country hopes so, at least, concerning how much they are depending on foreign labor for propelling the economy. Statistics Canada recently carried out a study to understand how refugees have fared in Canada in the long term. For the study, the refugees who came to Canada in 2003 were taken into consideration.

IRCC provides open work permits to people who claim asylum so they can continue working and earning for themselves while they are waiting for a verdict. People who arrive in Canada from abroad are given access to some federal settlement services from the get go.

Details of the study

For this study, Statistics Canada decided to do a comparative study among four groups of refugees and how each of them performed, with or without social assistance. The researchers dealt with refugees who managed to become permanent residents, privately-sponsored refugees, government-assisted refugees and asylum claimants who did not become a permanent resident.

Privately-sponsored refugees turned out to be the ones starting the best luck as they had the highest employment rates in the first five years after settling in Canada. The refugees who managed to become permanent residents began to perform almost the same as privately-sponsored refugees after a while. Post the sixth year, they surpassed them and acquired the highest employment rates.

Almost all the groups experienced a steady rise in income apart from the refugees whose asylum claims were not fulfilled. Privately-sponsored refugees were the highest earners.