Take in more skilled workers, panel urges

Experts seek target of 135,000 a year, and more power to select

Ontario needs to attract at least 135,000 newcomers a year, raise the ratio of skilled workers and take charge of immigrant selection to keep its economic engine running beyond 2014, says a governmentappointed panel. The findings of the expert panel will be presented to provincial Immigration Minister Charles Sousa on Wednesday, seven months after the panel was appointed to tackle declining immigration, skill shortages and the falling economic performance of newcomers. The report will form a blueprint for Ontario’s “first-ever” immigration strategy. Despite long being the top destination for newcomers to Canada, the province has seen its share of immigrant intake dropping by almost one-third over the past decade. In 2001, 59.3 per cent of immigrants (148,640) landed in Ontario; last year, it was just 40 per cent, or 99,000 individuals. While Ontario is expected to face a shortage of 364,000 skilled workers by 2025, the report found that only 24 per cent of internationally trained immigrants in Ontario were working in their actual field of training in 2010. That compares with 62 per cent for the Ontario population overall.

“A natural decline in the relative size of Ontario’s working-age population — due primarily to aging and low fertility rates — will put pressure on public finances as fewer workers support more retired Ontarians,” warned the 60-page report, obtained by the Star.

“Without any further immigration to Ontario, it is anticipated the working-age population will begin to decline by 2014.”

According to the 13-member panel — made up of economists, people working in immigrant settlement, and corporate and industry leaders — newcomers who have been in Ontario for less than five years earned 23.2 per cent less than Canadian-born counterparts in 2011. Ontario’s unemployment rate for immigrants last year was the second-worst in the country at 15.7 per cent — double the province’s overall unemployment rate of 7.6 per cent.

The economic struggles Ontario immigrants face have much to do with the province’s transforming economy, says the report. Jobs in the manufacturing sector, as a share of all Ontario jobs, fell 35 per cent in the last decade. Compounding the problem is the decline in the number of immigrants in the skilled category, from 64 per cent in 2001to 52 per cent in 2011.

The report says it is important to renew Ontario’s partnership with Ottawa — the two have been without an active immigration pact since March 2011 — and take “a greater role” in selecting immigrants to ensure its needs are met.