Immigrant Skill Utilization: Trends and Policy Issues

Branding ‘Canadian Experience’ in Immigration Policy: Nation Building in a Neoliberal Era

“…Although Canada's human capital approach to immigrant selection is known for its relative success, in recent decades, immigrants have earned lower incomes and have higher rates of unemployment, despite higher levels of education than Canadian-born workers (Ferrer et al 2014;Reitz et al 2014). Many aspects of the CEC were modelled on recommendations from a report by Lesleyanne Hawthorne (2008), who was commissioned by the Government of Canada, compared labour market outcomes for migrant professionals in Canada and Australia.…”

The skill paradox: explaining and reducing employment discrimination against skilled immigrants

“…Second, we heed calls for research on immigrant employees, the new "invisible men and women" in workforce diversity research (e.g., Bell, Kwesiga and Berry 2010;Dietz 2010). Third, Canada's economy loses over $11 billion annually because immigrants' skills are underutilized and up to $12.6 billion because they are underpaid (Reitz, Curtis and Elrick 2014). These outcomes are detrimental to immigrants and employers alike (e.g., Bhagat and London 1999;Esses, Dietz and Bhardwaj 2006).…”

The Importance of Origin and Destination Country Skills for Labour Market Attachment of Immigrants from Pakistan, Iran and Turkey

“…The hypothesis of under-utilization of skills is at the heart of the overeducation literature referenced above (e.g Reitz 2007;Reitz, Curtis & Elrick 2014). An alternative explanation of the low level of utilization of skills acquired in the country of origin is that the foreign skills are not directly transferable to the labour market in the destination country (Friedberg 2000;Chiswick & Miller 2009), in the sense that the skills are not relevant in the adopted labour market.…”