Jobs in smaller cities for new immigrants to Canada

From past 2 decades, Canada has tried to encourage immigrants to move to its smaller cities. The main tool to fulfill this goal is Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). The PNP allows provinces and territories to form their own eligibility criteria and nominate the immigrants who meet their requirements.

Programs to promote immigration to smaller cities:

In order to promote the above said matter, the federal government has launched new programs in recent years like Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP) and Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RINP), and also plans to launch new programs such as Municipal Nominee Program (MNP).

Ontario is going to launch a new Regional Immigration Pilot under its PNP in early 2020. Ontario is pursuing this initiative because nearly 80 per cent of its immigrants go to its capital region the Greater Toronto Area, which means that many cities across the province struggle to attract enough immigrants to support their economies.

Job opportunities in many smaller cities:

The immigrants’ priority after moving to Canada is to find a suitable job. Most of the immigrants believe that there are better prospects in major cities but they should know that there are equally good opportunities in the smaller cities of various provinces. In fact, in smaller cities and towns, there are better opportunities with easy availabilities as the smaller cities often have greater requirements for workers.

Such destinations have fewer young Canadians, new immigrants and other Canadians to fill the vacancies as many aging Canadian employees retire leaving their jobs and creating vacant positions.

Along with better job opportunities and vacancies, there is an additional advantage of less competitive markets enabling the immigrants to find job faster than major cities.

Below mentioned are other beneficial factors to support the idea that smaller cities have better opportunities.

Housing affordability:

Housing is one of the basic needs for human and in the cities like Toronto and Vancouver, the housing expense are way too high even for the higher-earning employees. Average rent for two-bedroom apartment in Toronto and Vancouver is $1600 and $1800 respectively. In smaller cities the housing rents for two-bedroom house range from $900 to $1200, while it is as low as $600 in Trois-Riveires, Quebec.

Hence, it is one of the factors to move to smaller cities and find the best job opportunity and living quality life.

Quality of Life:

Speaking of the quality of life, in smaller cities, people can enjoy better quality of life than that of in major cities. Commuting time is less as the cities are small and distance between two destinations is less. Hence, people can spare time for extra activities and smaller cities provide recreational activities like bigger cities. In addition to that, people have chance to go for outdoor activities like skiing, hiking and access beaches. Also, the smaller communities are tight-knit and easily connected socially which makes easy to make friends.

Over 80 Immigration Programs to choose from:

Despite the appeal of Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver, new immigrants should give strong consideration to moving to a smaller Canadian city instead. Newcomers have access to plenty of job opportunities in such cities as well as many immigration pathways to choose from. Canada currently offers more than 80 economic class immigration streams, many of which exist to encourage immigrants to build a life in smaller cities.