Canada immigration well above 2022 despite drop in April

This is according to the latest data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). immigration to Canada fell 34.6 percent in April as the country’s monthly number of new permanent residents declined for a third consecutive month.

In April, only 29,330 new permanent residents settled in Canada, 15,525 new permanent residents compared to the 44,855 in March.

And the immigration figures for March were themselves 9.7 percent lower than in February.

Since the start of this year, Canada’s monthly number of new permanent residents has fallen by 42.4 percent from a January high of 50,910.

Despite the declining trend in monthly immigration numbers so far this year, Canada has still seen more new permanent residents settle in the first four months of this year than during the comparable period last year.

In the first four months of this year, immigration increased by 16.4 percent as the country welcomed 24,575 new permanent residents for a total of 174,745, compared to 150,170 in the same period last year.

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Looking ahead to the first four months of this year, Canada could welcome 524,235 new permanent residents this year – but only if the higher numbers from the beginning of this year return.

Ottawa is optimistic about immigration and with it Immigration Level Plan 2023-2025has set its immigration target for 2023 at 465,000 new permanent residents.

The country must welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and another 500,000 in 2025.

That’s a total of 1.45 million immigrants to Canada over the next three years.

The strong start to immigration earlier this year indicates that Canada could not only surpass this year’s record-breaking immigration target, but could actually surpass it and reach the level of immigration that the federal government hopes to reach only by 2025, two years from now.

However, there are indications that this year’s strong start may not continue and will weaken for the rest of this year.

One such indicator is the deteriorating labor market in Canada.

Around this time last year, Statistics Canada reported that for the third consecutive month there were more than one million, exactly 1,037,900 job openings vacant. The latest from the Statistical and Demographic Bureau Labor force surveyHowever, it appears that vacancies fell to 843,200 in the first quarter of this year, a decrease of 18.7 percent.

Job openings are falling in Canada, falling 18.7% in the past year

“Year-over-year declines in job openings were seen across all levels of education sought by employers,” Statistics Canada revealed.

Fewer jobs up for grabs could mean that Canadian employers could be less inclined to hire foreigners to immigrate under economic immigration programs.

By far the most popular destination for newcomers to Canada in the first four months of the year was Ontario, which attracted 74,940 new permanent residents during the quarter.

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Economic programs, including the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), Immigration pilot for agrifood (AFIP), Canadian experience class (C.E.C.), Caretaker programs, Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP), Federal Skilled Commerce (FST) and Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) programs, the Starter visa (SUV) and Self-employed (SEP) programs, and the Transition from temporary resident to permanent resident accounting for just over half of all new permanent residents who came to Ontario in the first four months of this year.

Economic programs attract more than half of Ontario’s immigrant population

Those programs helped 38,555 new permanent residents arrive in Ontario in the first four months of this year.

Another 20,650 new permanent residents came through family sponsorship and 11,950 came to that province through Canada refugee and protected persons in the first four months of 2023.

The other provinces and territories each attracted the following number of new permanent residents during that period:

• Newfoundland and Labrador – 2,290
• Prince Edward Island – 1,410
• Nova Scotia – 4,555
• New Brunswick-3,435
• Quebec – 19,340
• Manitoba-10,315
• Saskatchewan – 8,945
• Alberta-20,615
• British Columbia – 28,375
• Yukon–365
• Northwest Territories – 145
• Nunavut–20

The Atlantic Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador was by far the province with the fastest immigration growth in the first four months of this year compared to the same period in 2022.

Newfoundland and Labrador is seeing a wave of immigration through the AIP and its PNP

In the first third of this year, the Rock, as the county is affectionately known, saw a 186.3 percent explosion in its immigration rate compared to the same four months last year, with 2,290 new permanent residents for that period this year compared to only 800 last year.

The number of new permanent residents to that county through the Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) rose 97.7 percent to reach 425 this year compared to just 215 in the same period last year.

But the biggest difference on the Rock is its Provincial nominees program (PNP) allowing 580.5 percent more new permanent residents, or 1,395, to settle there in the first four months of this year compared to the 205 for the same period last year.