Canada sees its biggest influx of immigrants since World War I

Canada just recorded its biggest influx of immigrants in more than a century.

The country added 71,131 immigrants in the final three months of 2018, for a full-year increase of 321,065, according to the latest estimates released Thursday by Statistics Canada in Ottawa. The annual increase is the largest since 1913 — when 401,000 immigrants flocked to the country — and the fourth-largest in historical data going back to 1852.

The inflows helped the nation’s population growth top half a million people for the first time since the late 1950s, the statistics agency said, and are part of a boom in international migration that includes a surge in nonpermanent residents such as foreign students. It’s been a welcome tailwind for an economy coping with aging demographics and other drags like record household debt.

The increase in international migration, for example, has helped fuel a surge in employment — even amid sluggish indicators in other parts of the economy — since immigrants tend to be of working age. Including other forms of migration such as non-permanent residents, the country recorded a 425,245 increase in international migration last year — the largest in data going back to 1972.

The immigration numbers include regular refugee inflows, but not those crossing the border illegally. Those are counted as non-permanent residents. The Statistics Canada data don’t provide a breakdown of refugee numbers.

Canada’s population increased 1.4 percent last year, the fastest since 1990 and the strongest among Group of Seven countries.