The issue of immigrant underemployment remains a persistent problem in Canada, despite policies aimed at integrating highly skilled global talent into the workforce.
But why?
“For the longest time, research has focused on racism and discrimination as the key drivers, and these certainly exist,” says Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC).
While that explains why a company would hire John instead of Ahmed, for example, even with labour shortages in 2022 and 2023, highly skilled immigrants were still being overlooked.