Oct. 8, 2003. 10:00 AM


Real wages of immigrant men falling, study shows
Pay for immigrant women rising, but not as fast as native counterparts



OTTAWA (CP) — Immigrant men working full time saw their real earnings fall by seven per cent between 1980 and 2000 even though they had more education than their Canadian-born counterparts, says Statistics Canada.

During the same period, the earnings of Canadian-born men rose by seven per cent.

"Earnings of recent immigrant women rose over the period, but not as quickly as among Canadian-born women," the agency said today.

"The study found that in 1980, immigrant male workers who had arrived in Canada from 1975 to 1979 and who were working full-time for at least 40 weeks earned $40,600.

"Twenty years later ... male immigrants who arrived from 1995 to 1999, earned only $37,900."

The decline occurred when their level of education rose substantially.

Why this should be so is not well understood, the agency said.

However, "some explanations can be ruled out."

The poorer performance of recent immigrants cannot be due to education since the education level of recent immigrant men and women employed on a full-year, full-time basis rose faster than that of their Canadian-born counterparts during the last two decades.

And "the performance of the ... labour market in 1980 and 2000 cannot explain this growing earnings gap either. The reason is that the unemployment rate of workers aged 25 to 54 was exactly the same in both years: 5.7 per cent.

"Real earnings of young Canadian-born men have also dropped substantially during this period," the study found.

"This suggests that the problems faced by recent immigrant men may not be unique to them. Rather, they may have an impact on all new entrants to the Canadian labour market, whether or not they are born in Canada."

And "even though it has been documented in several studies over the last decade, the drop in wages of new male entrants to the Canadian labour market is still not well understood."

It may be due to increased competition within industries, or from abroad.

"As a result of globalization and-or technological changes, these increases might lead firms to cut labour costs by decreasing wages, mainly in entry level jobs. This would affect pay rates of new entrants to the labour market."

A decrease in union membership among young workers may also have played a role.

I think during earlier period most of immigrants where from Europe and now most of them are from Asia. If the above it true - does it prove racism?

I don't think English is a concern as most of non-english european's english is not impressive.

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A Proud Indian Canadian

STATISCTICS.... quite interesting....

but the real wages depends upon many things most important of them is price levels (positive inflation over years with constant wages will decrease the real wages)...

The need of masses and level of income of Governmet also affects it.. In Canada with that small population and huge statictics department (and other departments included) employees, the calculation are influnded by their salaries, their personal perceptions about the general trends which they tend to support and the changes in calculation procedures and data collection....

There is very remote chance that real wages are decreasing dur racism because the efficencies in all fields have changed (Ealier systems were efficent but immigrant inefficent, now sytems are in efficent but immgrant are efficent...... And the beauty is that... earlier in efficent people are paying less to now more efficent people)... and There is another factor that people move to that place where they earn more... This trend is reflected in people moving from Canada to US and vice-versa..

In the nut shell situation is too complex and dynamic to put whole canada or world in one just one percentage figure.....

But these statistics and the topic is good for accedemic discussion and for paying the salries Satistics Canada...

You can confirm these facts and beliefs from each hungry man and the millionair in Canada (or world)...

and this survey work will have to be done by us (middle class)... Hmmmm and after geting the survey job in Canada, we will start beleiving in these statistical figures....

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Enjoy Happiness -- Happy from India

Quote:

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OTTAWA (CP) — Immigrant men working full time saw their real earnings fall by seven per cent between 1980 and 2000 even though they had more education than their Canadian-born counterparts, says Statistics Canada.

During the same period, the earnings of Canadian-born men rose by seven per cent.

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A Proud Indian Canadian

Dear Guru Jee,

I think all facts and things in Canada are interesting...

This difference between Canadian born and the immigrants is probably due to the fact that that Canadian born are getting the salaries from the govt money (in turn from Immigrants) for doing this statistical research..

We can know the simple amout that immigrants bring into Canada each year by multiplying total immirants (250,000) by approx average money ( CAD 1200 fee etc. paid to the govt) and about (CAD 5000 brought into Canada) per person. The people bringing in extra and paying to telephone, Air Canada and legal fee etc are extra to this amount...

So it becomes TOTAL = 250,000 X (1200+5000)

=> 1,550,000,000 =>> more that 1.5 billion.

Exact figures are available at CIC web site and the Federal Budget..

Now this 1.5 billion is the amout that slowly goes away from the 250,000 immigrants (250,000) to the Canadian population ( approx 30,000,000) plus in addition the previous population is somewhat more settled with more salaries and somewhat less montly expences......


It depends upon us from which way we see the things...

Kutch Samajay kya???

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Enjoy Happiness -- Happy from India

Yes, Samaja - You crossed 100 posts!!! Kongarechulation....

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A Proud Indian Canadian

Thanks, Guru Jee.

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Enjoy Happiness -- Happy from India