AI Analysis: Labour force characteristics of immigrants by educational attainment, three-month moving average, unadjusted for seasonality

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada Table 14100086 tracks labour force outcomes for immigrants across nearly 20 years of monthly data (2006–2026), revealing steady workforce growth alongside modest improvements in employment conditions. The immigrant population grew 15.6% between 2006 and 2018, while the unemployment rate declined from 7.1% to 6.3%, though participation and employment rates edged slightly downward. Education level, years since landing, and gender remain key dimensions shaping labour market outcomes, with significant variation across subgroups.

Key Findings

• The immigrant population grew by 15.6% between 2006 and 2018 (from ~26,000 to ~30,000 thousands), with total immigrant employment rising 14.4% from approximately 15,990 to 18,295 thousands over the same period.
• The immigrant unemployment rate declined by 11.3%, falling from 7.1% in 2006 to 6.3% in 2018, indicating gradually improving job-finding conditions despite slight drops in participation (-1.8%) and employment rates (-1.0%).
• The number of immigrants not in the labour force grew the fastest at +19.7%, potentially reflecting an aging immigrant population or increased educational enrollment.
• Two statistical outliers were detected in the Employment Rate using the IQR method — August 2007 (64.6%) and August 2008 (64.5%) — representing peak pre-recession labour market conditions just before the 2008 financial crisis.
• Rate-based labour force characteristics are tightly bounded, with the Employment Rate ranging 15.1–98.8% (mean 66.4%), Participation Rate 18.1–99.1% (mean 72.6%), and Unemployment Rate 1.7–44.8% (mean 9.0%), while count-based measures like Population span a far wider range of 5.0 to 30,029.9 thousands.
• Employment and Labour Force size are very strongly positively correlated, while Unemployment Rate and Employment Rate are strongly negatively correlated, confirming expected structural relationships within the labour market.
• The dataset covers 6 immigrant status categories, 6 educational attainment levels, 8 labour force characteristics, 3 gender categories, and 2 age groups across 1,728 unique time series — with 2,511 missing values noted across the full 20-year span.