“Canada needs more people,” said Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration on Tuesday. The country has raised its immigration thresholds with the aim of welcoming almost 500,000 newcomers each year by 2025 to compensate for a lack of manpower.
More than 900,000 positions are currently to be filled in many sectors of the country. Unemployment has also reached historic lows in recent months, standing at 5.2% in September. In order to overcome this, Ottawa therefore plans to grant permanent residence to 465,000 people in 2023 (i.e. 18,000 more than previously), 485,000 in 2024 (i.e. 34,000 more) and 500,000 in 2025.
Responding to “critical labor shortages”
In particular, the federal government intends to improve its selection programs to best respond to “critical labor shortages” in sectors “such as health care, skilled jobs, manufacturing and STEM (science, technology , engineering and mathematics).
By 2025, the goal is for more than 60% of total admissions to be economic migrants, said Sean Fraser. Canada also aims to reunite families with some members abroad more quickly, but to welcome fewer refugees.
Soon a “record wave” of retirements
In 2021, the country accepted more than 405,000 immigrants, “the largest number we have ever welcomed in a single year,” the immigration ministry said in a statement.
“Canada’s population is growing almost twice as fast as any other G7 economy today,” added Minister Sean Fraser. Among the group of seven major powers, Canada, with a population of almost 39 million, has the highest proportion of immigrants with nearly one in four Canadians born abroad.
However, the country is also on the cusp of a “record wave” of retirements, Statistics Canada warned in the spring.