Abstract

Immigrants and the Labour Market

Grace-Edward Galabuzi

New immigrants and racialized groups in Canada’s labour market

The presentation will focus on the labour market experiences of Canada’s racialized and recent immigrant population. Increasingly this segment of Canadian society is disproportionately represented in low-income sectors and low-end occupations, and under-represented in high-income sectors and occupations, symptomatic of a racialized segmentation of the labour market with patterns of labour market participation characterized by racial inequality in access to work and in employment income, casualization and intensification of work, and high incidence of low income. Using the social exclusion framework, we will explore the dimensions and social impacts of these developments and consider interventions governments, labour and social justice organizations can employ to affect appropriate policy responses.

New immigrants and racialized groups in Canada’s labour market

The presentation will focus on the labour market experiences of Canada’s racialized and recent immigrant population. Immigration accounted for more than 50% of Canada’s net population growth and 70% of the growth in the labour force over the first half of the 1990s (1991-96), and it is expected to account for virtually all of the net growth in the Canadian labour force by the year 2011. Increasingly this largely racialized segment of Canadian society is disproportionately represented in low-income sectors and low-end occupations, and under-represented in high-income sectors and occupations, symptomatic of a racialized segmentation of the labour market. Moreover, it shares these patterns of labour market participation with Canada’s racialized population whose experiences are also characterized by racial inequality in access to work and in employment income, casualization and intensification of work, and high incidence of low income. These emerging patterns of social exclusion occur within the context of the restructuring of global economy, aided and abated by the shift towards neo-liberal forms of governance, the dismantling of the Welfare state, a deregulated labour market and the persistence of historical forms of systemic racial and gendered discrimination in employment. Using the social exclusion framework, we will explore the social dimensions and impacts of these developments and consider interventions governments, labour and social justice organizations can employ to effect appropriate policy responses.

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For more information about the conference, contact:
 
Sarah Zgraggen
The Willow Group
Tel: (613) 722-8796;
Fax: (613) 729-6206;
e-mail: szgraggen@thewillowgroup.com