Most immigrants settled in big cities: StatsCan
CTV.ca News Staff

Canada's major urban centres were home to most of the 1.8 million
immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, according to a Statistics Canada
survey.

Settlement was spread over Canada's 27 census metropolitan areas, but
nearly three-quarters made their homes in the three largest centres --
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, StatsCan said.

As well, most Canadian-born children of immigrants also reside in
those three main centres.

Immigrants from East and South Asia made up the majority of all new
arrivals in Canada, according to the StatsCan report, based primarily
on data from 2001.

The report on immigrants in Canada's urban centres also took a look
at the education and employment levels of immigrants.

It found that while most immigrants had higher levels of education
than their Canadian counterparts, they were more likely to be
employed in lower-skilled jobs.

"In fact, recent immigrants with a university degree were much more
likely than their Canadian-born counterparts to be working in
occupations that typically require no formal education," the report
says.

It also says recent immigrants have higher levels of unemployment,
and lower levels of employment. Women are also more likely than men
to suffer this trend.

The two main areas most impacted by these trends in immigration are
transit and schools in Canada's major urban centres, according to
StatsCan.

"This high rate of public transit use among recent immigrants,
coupled with the sizable number of recent immigrants living in
metropolitan areas, means that they are an important and growing
customer base for public transit systems in many urban centres," the
report says.

Recent immigrants and their children are also more likely than their
Canadian-born counterparts to attend school.

"In all age groups between 18 and 54, recent immigrants were more
likely than people born in Canada to have attended school in the
academic year 2000/01," StatsCan says.

Other findings in the report:

>>>Just under one-third of new immigrants had taken at least one
course in either English or French within six months of arriving in
Canada
>>>Recent immigrants were less likely to work on a full-year, full-
time basis
>>>On average, immigrants earn less than Canadian-born individuals,
but the gap is reduced as immigrants gain work experience in Canada
>>>In most urban centres, recent immigrants were at least twice as
likely as Canadian-born workers to earn less than $20,000 a year

Interesting.

Cant say I havent heard that heard before....

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