Alicia Planincic: We know the one thing Canada could be doing to select better economic immigrants. So why aren’t we doing it?

Source: FancyNewMe

4 Comments

  1. Condensed:

    * The main problem is that the points system is supposed to be a predictor of immigrant success, but the factors it considers now account for only 16 percent of the difference in immigrants’ earnings in the short term. Longer term, it’s even less.
    * **That means the factors that get you points under the current approach are not good predictors of immigrant success; and other important factors that do predict success are being overlooked.**
    * Candidates receive CRS points for things like language abilities, number of years of schooling, and whether they have a sibling in Canada. But factors like what their degree was in, or where they got it from, are not reflected. **The biggest limitation of the points system is that it ignores labour market information.**
    * To improve the CRS, Canada needs to better capture the value of the skills a candidate brings. As it turns out, the best-known way to do so is pretty simple: **have the points system reflect their current earnings.**
    * Why is that? Wages reflect both the needs of the economy (demand) and the relative availability of labour (supply). Generally speaking, if demand for a certain occupation or skillset is strong, or few are willing or able to do this work, wages will be high.
    * We should also regularly refine the CRS as new and better information—including the type and quality of skill (e.g., field of study, program of education) most highly valued—becomes available and can be incorporated. **The CRS cannot reflect the economy of 50 years ago.**

  2. Intrepid_Ad322 on

    Better economic migrants will demand higher wages, which is inflationary.

    We can’t tame inflation as long as salaries are growing at 5%, but inflation is only growing at 3%. Hence, we need ‘worse’ economic migrants in order to keep wages depressed.

  3. PmMeYourBeavertails on

    >But factors like what their degree was in, or where they got it from, are not reflected. Meanwhile, the biggest limitation of the points system is that it ignores labour market information. It therefore tells us little about how valuable someone’s skills are to the Canadian economy.

    Because the Liberals consider those factors to be racist.

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