Canada’s immigration system, long considered a strategic tool for addressing labour shortages, is struggling to keep up with growing demand in essential service sectors. Despite targeted immigration pathways, many of the occupations facing critical staffing gaps — such as in healthcare, transportation, and child care — are not adequately prioritized in current immigration programs, Maple News reports.
A recent study from the Conference Board of Canada titled “Valued Workers, Valuable Work: The Current and Future Role of (Im)migrant Talent,” authored by Dr. Yilmaz Dinc, sheds light on this pressing issue. The report highlights how high levels of overqualification and underemployment among immigrants are hampering both individual economic success and broader labour market efficiency.
Currently, nearly one in four workers in Canada is an immigrant, with especially high representation in sectors like food manufacturing, trucking, nursing and long-term care. However, these vital professions are often undervalued, offer limited career progression, and come with lower wages. Because these roles are largely unpopular among Canadian-born workers, immigrants—many of them with advanced degrees—tend to fill them out of necessity.
The study notes that roughly 40% of newcomers employed as child care providers or support workers are overqualified for their roles. This misalignment creates dual problems: immigrants fail to fully realize their economic potential, and employers have difficulty retaining workers who feel underutilized and dissatisfied.
In response, the report offers a range of policy recommendations to improve job matching and retention. Chief among them is the expansion of permanent residency pathways tailored specifically for those working in essential roles. This would make it easier for candidates without university degrees—but with real-world experience in high-demand jobs—to gain long-term residency and stability in Canada.
The report also calls for changes to the Express Entry system, Canada’s primary online immigration application platform. Currently, this system heavily favours educational qualifications, sidelining those in essential but less formally credentialed roles. To address this, the study proposes awarding more points in Express Entry to applicants with experience in sectors like eldercare, truck driving, or food processing — areas crucial to Canada’s social and economic fabric.
By rebalancing its immigration priorities and better aligning immigrant skills with market needs, Canada has an opportunity to both honour the contributions of essential workers and alleviate long-standing labour shortages. As Maple News emphasizes, reshaping the narrative around immigrant talent is critical for building a more sustainable, inclusive, and economically resilient future.