Knowledge of Official Languages Among New Immigrants: How Important Is It in the Labour Market? - ARCHIVED

Immigrants to Canada must face numerous difficulties during their first years in the country, the two most important being to find an appropriate job and language barrier. But does a better knowledge of official languages increase the chances for an immigrant of occupying a high-skilled job, a job in the intended occupation, a job similar to the one they had before immigrating, a job related to their training or field of study, or to have a higher hourly rate?

In an attempt to answer this question, the data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) were used. In the LSIC, a cohort of immigrants was interviewed at three points in time being 6 months, 2 years and 4 years after arrival in the country. For this study, we used the information about the job occupied at the time of each interview, as well as the English and French self-assessed spoken ability levels at each of these moments.