Future of work
A curated resource of recent research on trends shaping Canada's labour market.
According to recent data from Statistics Canada, educational attainment among racialized immigrants is at an all-time high.
The percentage of racialized immigrants holding a bachelor’s degree or higher went up by more than 14% from 2006 to 2021. The 2021 census found that roughly 46% of racialized immigrants across Canada had at least a bachelor’s degree.
For comparison, among individuals admitted to Canada before 2011, the proportion with at least a bachelor’s degree was 41.5%. For those who arrived between 2011 and 2021, the percentage rose to 55.8%.
The 2021 census also indicated that racialized immigrant women and racialized newcomers were among the most educated demographics in Canada, outpacing their male and Canadian-born counterparts.
In addition, the 2021 data showed that most racialized groups typically had higher levels of education than the Canadian average, and that the gap is widening. These increasing levels of education may be attributed to immigration programs prioritizing higher levels of skill and education to support critical labour market demands.
For example, it’s noteworthy that 53.2% of all immigrants in Canada aged 15 and older arrived through an economic immigration stream. The programs along that pathway typically call for higher education as part of their admission criteria.