Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning. Thank you for inviting us to join you as part of your study on economic immigration and labour shortages. We are very pleased to assist you with foundational information today as you begin.
From the motion, it is clear that you will have multiple lines of inquiry, and we are very pleased to assist, including by recommending any witnesses from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or elsewhere, who may be able to help you dig further.
My remarks this morning will focus on the ways in which Canada's immigration system is set up to further economic objectives. This will include an overview of the permanent and temporary resident programming, building on our foundational presentation of a few weeks ago. We'll focus on the elements that are specifically tailored for selecting immigrants on economic criteria.
I will then turn to my colleagues, as noted, from Employment and Social Development Canada, to comment specifically on the temporary foreign worker program, given the committee's specific interest in the labour market impact assessments. My colleagues from Statistics Canada will conclude our remarks here with some of the data focused on trends and projections in the labour market.
Your study focuses on the tightening labour market that Canada is now experiencing and is projected to experience in the future. Demographic factors are driving these trends. The immigration system clearly stands to play a significant role in addressing Canada's labour market needs. It provides two important sources of labour: new permanent residents admitted to Canada and temporary foreign workers.
The other source, of course, is the domestic labour force, both those leaving school to enter the workforce and those getting trained and re-trained for the evolving job market.
With demographic and labour market projections being what they are, the reality is that, even if all measures were taken to maximize the domestic work force, a robust immigration system would still be needed. In fact, immigration already accounts for almost 100% of labour force growth today. That is a significant figure. Immigration is definitely connected with addressing labour shortages. However, immigrants should not be thought of narrowly only as workers filling a present need. They are future citizens, here for the long term, and their children will become the second-generation contributors to future labour markets.
While there are immediate labour market needs, we also take a long view with the immigration system. I emphasize the words “long view”, because that is really important.
The next area of economic immigration is permanent residence. The largest of our economic programs are based on long-standing human capital criteria, sometimes referred to as the Canadian “points system”, which are now administered through express entry. This means that not only do economic immigrants arrive here quickly—the service standard is six months or less—but they are also among the best-scoring candidates from a large pool of candidates. Almost half of the economic-class admissions in 2018 were through express entry. Outcomes are particularly strong for this group, as 95% are employed one year after admission, income is about 20% higher than that of immigrants admitted prior to the express entry process, and 83% report working in their primary occupation.
The next largest component of the economic immigration system is the provincial nominee programs, which are geared toward distributing the benefits of immigration across Canada and meeting specific regional and labour market needs prioritized by the provinces. Quebec administers its own economic selection program under the Canada-Québec Accord.
Recently, with a view to spreading the benefits of immigration, the government introduced new pilot programs to test new approaches to immigrant selection and retention. These include the Atlantic immigration pilot, which uses an employer-settlement focused model; the rural and northern immigration pilot, which uses a community economic development model right now in 11 communities across Canada; and the agri-food immigration pilot, which experiments with a particular sector-driven approach. These are about innovating so that the immigration system continues to meet both general and more targeted objectives, including labour force and economic objectives. The municipal nominee program, which is a mandate commitment of the minister, is a further opportunity to innovate within the system.
To round out the overview of our economic immigration programming, we also have more targeted programs like the start-up visa program, which is targeted at entrepreneurs to come into Canada and start up an opportunity. The caregiver program, as I think many on the committee know, is a long-standing pathway, though with several adaptations over recent years.
I'll just say a word on some of the numbers. Through the immigration levels plan tabled annually in Parliament, you will note that permanent resident admissions have been climbing steadily in recent years. Admissions now stand at approximately 340,000, whereas five years ago they were routinely in the neighbourhood of about 270,000 admissions. The economic-class numbers have climbed in step with that, comprising almost 60% of the total immigrant admissions. The economic targets are 195,800 for 2020. In 2021 they will be about 202,000. Most of the principal applicants being admitted through the economic class meet Canada's high-skilled needs. In 2018, 81% were in the higher-skilled occupations. That breaks down to about 37% in the professional occupations, 13% in managerial positions, and 30% in skilled and technical skill levels.
Obviously, temporary foreign workers are another source of labour supply. This is largely a demand-driven area, by which we mean that employer demand to hire workers on a temporary work permit can fluctuate and drive the numbers, as opposed to a target set by government. Here too the numbers are up. In fact, the number of temporary work permits issued in 2019 was about 405,000, up by about 20% from 2018.
With respect to temporary workers, there are two broad streams of programming. One is the temporary foreign worker program, which is administered by ESDC colleagues, and the international mobility program, which is administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. I'll conclude my remarks with a few words on the international mobility program before turning to ESDC on the temporary foreign worker program.
Under the umbrella of the international mobility program are several streams that have the common feature of not requiring a labour market test because of the other policy goals they target. The largest categories here are former international students entitled to work for a period after graduation; foreign youth in Canada under bilateral youth mobility; and workers covered by trade agreements, such as CUSMA, and inter-company transfers.
I'll end my remarks there and turn to ESDC on some of the temporary labour market programs.