Canadian unemployment falls to a record low of 5.2%.

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  • May 11, 2022

The unemployment rate in Canada has fallen to a new all-time low once again. According to Statistics Canada, it fell from 5.3 per cent to 5.2 per cent in April, a new record.

4.3 percent is the lowest unemployment rate recorded for the age group of 25 to 54 since 1976, which was also the first time comparable data was available.

In April, the unemployment rate among immigrants was 5.5%, down from 5.8% in March.

Statistics Canada reported a decline across all three immigrant cohorts.

The percentage fell to 7.8 percent among immigrants who gained permanent residence within the last five years, compared to 8.3 percent in April.

In March, it was 6.3 percent among immigrants who gained permanent residence between five and ten years ago.

In April, the percentage of immigrants who gained permanent residence 10 years ago or more was 4.6 percent, down from 4.8 percent in March.

Overall Canada has a historically high job vacancy rate with over 800,000 unfilled jobs.

As a result, the federal government and provinces across Canada are working to ease their Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) rules.

Alberta, for instance, announced earlier this week that it would remove all occupations from its prior “refusal to process” list that prohibited employers from hiring foreign workers in occupations with surplus labour.

In response to Canada’s historically low unemployment rate and historically high job vacancy rate, the federal government eased the TFWP rules in April.

Additionally, Canada plans to welcome more immigrants in order to meet its labour needs. As part of the Immigration Levels Plan 2022-2024, Canada aims to welcome over 430,000 immigrants per year, most of whom will come under the economic category.

Express Entry is the main way the Canadian government welcomes economic class immigrants. IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) announced recently that invitations to both Express Entry programs will resume in early July after a temporary halt.

In July, the government will also bring the time for processing permanent residence requests for Express Entry applicants down to six months.

Among the reasons this is major news is Express Entry will once again be Canada’s main economic immigration direction. Express Entry will account for one-quarter of Canada’s immigrant admissions come 2024, a total of over 110,000 immigrants who will be welcomed by Canada on their basis to contribute to the labour market.

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