Retaining Immigrants in Canada (Article Sample)

Retaining Immigrants in Canada
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Retaining Immigrants in Canada
Alec Regino's article explores the importance of immigrants and why decision-makers need to address the systemic failure to retain immigrants in Canada. Immigrants are critical to Canada's labor market. Since the labor market needs to drive immigrants, the government needs to develop various policies to protect them because it needs them to boost its economy. Even though the current statistics show that immigrants account for 25 percent of the workforce in Canada, they are disproportionately represented in occupations, thus putting them at high risk of contracting viruses and diseases (Regino, 2022). In fact, their presence is crucial to addressing labor market needs in our country, and their importance was evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, Corinne Prince, a director-general of immigration in Canada, asserts that immigrants played a vital role during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 (Regino, 2022).
Although Canada has a strong economic need for increased immigration and the worker to retiree ratio is likely to drop to 3:1 by the end of this decade, the country still has systematic issues that continue to keep many immigrants in low-wage jobs, precarious, and poor working conditions (Regino, 2022). Arora argues that the main challenge facing immigrants, especially women, is overrepresented in industries that always get affected during the pandemic. Such industries include accommodation, healthcare, and food services sectors (Regino, 2022).
The most pernicious systemic barrier is that keeping underemployed and overqualified immigrants has been difficult in transferring educational and employment credentials. This makes it hard for new immigrants to gain meaningful employment in their professions. For example, a study by World Education Services shows that only 39 percent of immigrants in Canada are holding jobs in their fields, while the remaining 61 percent are doing jobs outside their professions (Regino, 2022). This is a serious issue that the Canadian government needs to address urgently to keep and retain foreign talents to meet its labor market needs.
Additionally, Regino argues that policymakers and settlement service agencies need to do a lot of work to ensure immigrants are incorporated into our country in a way that appreciates their contributions to our country's economy (Regino, 2022). However, recognizing their contributions and values involves investing strongly in all sectors within the country and using a dignity-based method to approach immigrants allowed in the schools, communities, and workplace.
After reading this article, I think Canada only accepts immigrants based on their skills, what they can contrib