Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

No - this is the graph: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO1eps3WgAEzQYa?format=jpg&name=...

Immigration is the only thing providing GDP growth. Otherwise the Canadian economy is clearly broken




Since that graph measures per capita, I think the obvious (and grim) one might come to here is that immigrants to Canada, on average, aren't as productive in the Canadian economy as native citizens.

What do you think?


No doubt you hit the nail on the head, for two reasons:

1. Immigration is a federal matter, commerce is (mostly) a provincial matter. In practice, this means the federal government brings in the people it thinks should be most economically useful for the economic need that is present, but the provinces put up red tape to disallow them from being most useful. The canonical example here being the trained medical doctor left to drive a taxi.

2. Immigrants tend to want to settle amongst each other. Which is no doubt important socially, but the communities are most often not located where there is the economic need. This leaves individuals to be under-utilized, if even jobless, all while employers can't find anyone to hire. Since provincially-regulated employers can't find anyone to hire, the federal government sees a need for even more people and use one of the few tools they have. You can guess what happens next.


Is this true for well educated immigrants too? It seems like this might be affecting a limited population, if the educated immigrant goes to Canada, they are aware of what immigration means and might be open integrating instead of living in an immigrants community


Well, if we look at the Statscan economic region that consistently posts the lowest unemployment rate (and where the news regularly reports on the exceptionally high number of job vacancies), only 2,140 immigrants arrived there from 2016-2021 (latest census data). Whereas 1,328,240 immigrants arrived in Canada over the same period.

Is it possible that only 0.16% of immigrants are educated? Well, maybe, but if that's the case it is insignificant enough that it is basically meaningless. Said economic region is home to 0.8% of the population, so immigrants are disproportionately not going there despite the data showing the greater economic need.

Education does not remove the human experience. I expect it is plain hard to be one of almost no immigrants to show up somewhere, even if you come with awareness. You aren't likely to find a familiar culture, or other people going through the same experience, so it can easily become isolating. Immigrant communities beget immigrants because they offer something to immigrants. Life isn't just about work it turns out.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: