Maple News reports that Canadian businesses are seeing measurable productivity gains as their workforces become more diverse, thanks to increased immigration. A new Statistics Canada study offers detailed insights into how immigrant workers contribute to long-term growth in productivity, wages, and profitability at the firm level.
The study, titled “Immigration and Firm Productivity: Evidence from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database,” used longitudinal data from 2000 to 2015 to analyze how changes in hiring patterns influenced company performance. It found that immigrants who arrived in Canada after 1980 made up an average of 13.5% of workers in businesses with 20 or more employees during that period.
According to the data, productivity growth is positively associated with a rise in the share of immigrant workers within a firm. While a 10-percentage point increase in immigrant employees led to a modest average productivity rise of 1.9%, the gains were much more significant in firms that experienced pronounced increases in immigrant hires. Over extended measurement periods—five to ten years—the positive impact on productivity became even more evident.
Interestingly, the study noted that the productivity boost was more pronounced in firms that employed more immigrants with lower educational attainment. This trend was particularly true in technology-intensive and knowledge-based sectors, suggesting a complementary dynamic between immigrant workers and native-born employees. Firms appear to benefit when they leverage the differing skills of their workforce through increased specialization and role optimization.
The report concludes that immigrants often bring skills that complement those of Canadian-born workers, leading businesses to adapt with greater job specialization. This effect results in enhanced productivity across teams and departments.
While the immediate short-term effect of hiring immigrants may seem small, the long-term gains underscore the value of inclusive hiring practices. The findings bring more empirical weight to policy arguments supporting immigration as a key driver of economic growth in Canada.
As Canada continues to shape its immigration policies around labor market needs, this study reinforces the idea that a well-integrated immigrant workforce is not just good social policy—it’s good for business.