Recessions often have a bigger impact on the labour market outcomes of immigrants compared with Canadian-born people. In the case of the recession brought on by COVID-19 restrictions, it seems that recently immigrated women may have been the most severely affected.
The accommodation and food services and retail trade sectors were hit particularly hard during pandemic shutdowns, affecting low-wage workers the most, along with less educated workers and young women.
Women who have recently immigrated are overrepresented in these sectors and in other low-paying jobs. They also tend to have had less time on the job compared with other workers.
A recent study in Economic and Social Reports showed that recently immigrated women had higher unemployment rates and lower employment rates than their Canadian-born counterparts, both before and after the start of the pandemic. This wasn’t the case for recently immigrated men, who had outcomes similar to Canadian-born individuals during both periods.
The transition rate out of employment for recently immigrated women reached 20% as of April 2020—7 percentage points higher than that of Canadian-born women.
Among very recent immigrants in the core working age group, the share who were employed rose by 7.8 percentage points to 78.7% in the two years ending in December 2021.
Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).