From 2008 to 2013 the unemployment rate for recent immigrants increased by 17 per cent in Ontario, according to an analysis of labour force survey data.

“Given that the majority of immigrants come to Ontario, and the Ontario economy has had difficulties in the recent years, it’s becoming more and more difficult for immigrants to integrate into the labour market,” said Gilles Grenier, economics professor at the University of Ottawa.

It also increased by five per cent for the whole country.

According to Grenier, immigrants who arrived to Canada five or less years ago have still not recovered from the economic recession. “The recession had affected recent immigrants a lot more than Canadian born,” said Grenier.

Currently the Canadian immigration system works on a point system. If immigrants have enough points based on education, experience and language proficiencies, they are granted permanent residency. “Usually we see very highly educated immigrants, highly skilled immigrants, but they cannot find jobs in their field.” Although these individuals have outstanding education, it is not valued as much as Canadian education, said Grenier. “Most of the immigrants have university degrees that they got in their own countries and most of them look for professional jobs.” He said that most recent immigrants look for jobs in the engineering, health and education sector. “But most of the time their credentials are not recognized.” Canada receives over 200 thousand new immigrants per year. It is considered one of the most welcoming countries in the world. But Grenier said that over the past couple of years the recession has really caused a decrease in demand in the job market. There ended up being more immigrants than the job prospects. “The demand for them was smaller than the supply.” Grenier said this happened in the information and technology sector in the early 2000s when the industry was booming. It attracted a mass amount of foreign professionals who were under the impression that jobs were plentiful. But there weren’t as many jobs as the amount of newcomers that were flowing into the country and the recession caused the striving industry to slow down. Grenier said we have to re-think immigration policy so it focuses on the demand of the labour market. Kelly McGahey is a manager at Hire Immigrants Ottawa, an organization that works with employers to help them integrate immigrants into their work force. She recognizes that skilled immigrants face difficulty entering into the Canadian labour market, but said we also need to focus on the challenges employers are facing. Employers are sometimes not sure how to evaluate credentials and, “they have challenges in terms of effectively managing and increasingly diverse workplace.” She also said a lot of employers she works with in Ottawa have a hard time connecting with immigrants who are not in their networks. McGahey said if we can’t to keep the unemployment rate down for recent immigrants it’s important to address these perceived challenges employers face. “Were really spending a fair bit of time and effort just trying to inform and educate Ottawa’s employers about the changing demographics, and helping them to see that this is a talent pool they need to be considering.” They offer training on managing a culturally diverse work force and try to bring employers and recent immigrants together during networking and training events. “It’s all about chipping away at those various barriers.” For immigration lawyer Joel Sandaluk, the problem lies in Canada’s rapidly changing immigration policies. “Part of the problem is that immigration policy changes so rapidly now that it makes it incredibility difficult to predict and understand,” said Sandaluk, Mamann, Sandaluk & Kingwell LLP. He agrees that highly skilled immigrants ¬– who come into the country on the point system – are at a disadvantage. “Despite the fact that their credentials were outstanding, they didn’t have Canadian experience.” He said the government recognized this and created the Canadian Experience Class in 2008, to meet the demand of the labour market needs. The program was created for temporary foreign workers who wish to gain permanent resident status after working in Canada for a year. “Instead of rewarding people for their credentials, you are rewarding for their work they have already done,” said Sandaluk. He thought that the program would have helped the situation for recent immigrants and was shocked to hear the unemployment rate increased from 2008 to 2013. But the Canadian Experience Class has become much more restrictive over the years, said Sandaluk. Sandaluk who has worked with a lot of immigrants said that a lot of newcomers sacrifice a lot to come to Canada. “Immigrants are not generally thinking about themselves when they immigrate.” Most of the time they are thinking about their kids. “The government perceives immigration as a huge opportunity, and it is. But not for the people who are immigrating. He said that these families want their kids to get a better education so they come to Canada, but they don’t find jobs in their field. “They are not able to do the work that they are qualified to do.” The government announced it’s going to change the immigration system on Jan. 1. Under the new online express entry system, skilled immigrants will be matched with vacant jobs in at least 50 occupations based on skills and an individual’s ability to succeed in the Canadian economy. Only those with the highest ranking will be invited to apply for permanent residency and applications will be processed in six months or less.