The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the integration outcomes of immigrants – both recent immigrants and established immigrants in Canada. In general, these groups are more negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis than those born in Canada, and these disparities create additional barriers to the integration process. Tracking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigrants relative to the Canadian-born population with empirical evidence and incorporating this into the CIMI is especially critical. In order to explore this, two analyses have been conducted.
In the first analysis Impact of Covid-19 on Canadians – Crowdsourcing Data, data from the Statistics Canada crowdsourcing surveys was used to test the feasibility of building an index to analyze gaps between immigrants and non-immigrants. We attempted to match crowdsourcing data to some of the CIMI indicators and dimensions, looking at gaps between immigrants and non-immigrants across identity markers such as sex and visible minority status.
You may download this report from the link below.
The second analysis was focused on the CIMI economic dimension. Data from Statistics Canada’s 2019 and 2020 Labour Force Surveys was used to demonstrate how COVID-19 has affected the economic outcomes of immigrants, both recent and established.
Please use the drop-down menu below to access data from our second analysis. This will allow you to view information related to how Canada and its regions perform when immigrant economic outcomes are compared from one year prior to the COVID-19 crisis (2019), to during the COVID-19 crisis (2020). National level data includes the entire Canadian population. The data on this page is limited to the regions listed below due to sample size limitations.
Manitoba
Data below is based on the monthly Labour Force Surveys collected from January 2019 to December 2020.
Below you will find 1) CIMI Ranking/ Adjusted Data and 2) Unadjusted Data.
CIMI RANKINGS
Manitoba ranks #4 out of the 7 regions for immigrant economic integration in 2019 and #5 in 2020. It ranks lower when the gap between recent and established immigrants is compared (#7 in 2019 and #5 in 2020).
Manitoba performs very well on most economic indicators in 2019, including labour force participation and employment and unemployment rate, but performs relatively poorly on other indicators such as wages and full-time employment rate. Manitoba performed relatively poorly in almost all indicators when the gap between recent and established immigrants is analyzed.
See below for the breakdown of immigrants, recent and established, and the Canadian-born population in this region. Any blank in the chart indicates that the data is unavailable/statistically insignificant. Please note that the data below does not control for socio-demographic characteristics, unlike our rankings above.
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Without accounting for socio-demographic differences, full-time immigrant workers consistently earned less than their Canadian-born counterparts prior to and during the pandemic. The wage gap has grown over the survey months; in December 2019, the gap was $228, and by December 2020, it increased to $248. The same trend is visible between established and recent immigrants; the wage gap in December 2019 was $140, while in December 2020, it increased to $196.
Note: All wages seen here are before Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment
Without accounting for socio-demographic differences, during 2019, part-time immigrant workers, on average, earned $22 less than their Canadian-born counterparts. During the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, the gap varied, and by December, the Canadian-born and immigrants population earned the same, with an average wage gap of $10. The opposite trend can be seen between established and recent immigrants. While in 2019 average wage gap was $18, in 2020, it jumped to $27.
Note: All wages seen here are before Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment
Without accounting for socio-demographic differences, over the survey months prior to and during the pandemic, immigrant workers were more likely to participate in the labour force than their Canadian-born counterparts. While the gap varied, it stayed relatively small (less than 5 percentage points). The gap was the same between recent and established immigrants. There was a drop in labour force participation in 2020 between February and April for all groups; the smallest decline was for the Canadian-born population (4.8%) and the largest for recent immigrants (7.9%).
Without accounting for socio-demographic differences, until February 2020 the gap between immigrants and the Canadian-born population varied; it was around 4 percentage points. After February, the gap was on average less than 1 percentage point. The COVID-19 pandemic had a similar impact on the gap between recent and established immigrants; from January 2019 to February 2020, the average gap was 5 percentage points. After that, it dropped to less than 2 percentage points.
Without accounting for socio-demographic differences, recent immigrants were consistently more likely to be unemployed than established immigrants over the survey months. The only exception was in May 2020, when established immigrants had a higher unemployment rate. The unemployment rate varied for all groups, but it went sharply up at the onset of the pandemic in April 2020. After this point, the unemployment rate had a downward trend for all groups, except for recent immigrants; in July 2020, the unemployment rate jumped even higher than in April 2020 to 14.2%.
Without accounting for socio-demographic differences, established immigrants in most survey months before and during the pandemic were more likely to work full-time than recent immigrants; the gap varied and was at its largest in Jun 2020 (6.5%). The gap between immigrants and Canadian-born was a bit smaller across all survey periods (less than 5%).