The Canadian population is ageing. Consequently, the need for new workers to enter the automotive production workforce has become progressively more urgent.

Canada is a nation of immigrants. As a result, immigrant labour has played a central role in helping grow the automotive production sector – predominantly, but not exclusively, in both assembly and parts production.

 Specifically, according to 2019 data, immigrants in Canada made up:

• 23% of the labour force in assembly
• 39% in parts production

Canada’s population growth of 1.4% between 2018 and 2019 was fuelled significantly by the arrival of immigrants and non-permanent residents.

The highest educated immigrant population in the OECD

According to OECD data, Canada has the highest-educated immigrant population in the entire group of 38 member companies. Competition to recruit the brightest and best among this immigrant population is both well established and relatively intense. 

Understanding the competitive environment

At FOCAL, part of our mandate is to understand and analyze the labour market participation of immigrants. This enables us to help stakeholders:

1. Assess opportunities to target and recruit from the immigrant pool of labour.
2. Inform human resources development plans at the government and enterprise-levels to maximize recruitment opportunities for suitably qualified immigrant personnel.
3. Enable corporate and public policy leadership to successfully encourage and educate our immigrant population about the wide and growing range of job opportunities in the automotive production sector.

To add context to this challenge, we have developed two graphics. The first (figure 1) highlights the relative distribution of immigrant labour in our industry relative to several others. The second (figure 2) supplements the first by offering a snapshot of Canada’s immigrant labour force broken down by selected occupations and geographical locations.

Figure 1. Immigrant Labour Force in Auto vs other industries



Figure 2. Immigrant Labour Force in Selected Occupations by Region



Implications for our automotive sector recruitment strategy

We have developed a three-part recruitment recommendation as part of our broader commitment to improve the flow of immigrant labour to the Canadian automotive production sector.  

1. Education and skills

According to our analysis, some of the greatest labour shortages forecasted for the automotive production sector are in the skilled trades. This has implications for Canadian immigration policy.

We may wish to consider modifying the immigrant labour assessment process to provide greater weight to people with certification and/or skills that are in short supply.

2. Tracking skills and labour market outcomes

Only 30% to 40% of immigrants are required to declare an intended occupation when applying for permanent resident status. The system used to track education and skills needs to be streamlined to help us understand structural labour demand and supply issues.

Those issues can then be addressed through policy modification for both immigration and labour market training.

3. Labour market integration, skills recognition and intermediaries

Many newcomers to Canada remain unaware of labour market opportunities and experience difficulties in finding work appropriate to their skill level and qualifications.

One option may be the use of intermediaries, such as World Education Services Canada (WES), a US non-profit which established a Toronto office in 2000 to provide credential recognition services for internationally educated professionals.

The use of intermediaries to assist employers to evaluate credentials and skills of technicians and skilled trades people may be worth further examination. Such an approach may ultimately be useful in assisting the automotive sector in fulfilling its expanding recruitment needs. 

Conclusion

Understanding immigrant employment in the automotive production sector and opportunities for employers to solve looming skills shortages by hiring and/or training more immigrants is crucial.

As we have observed, trends in the labour force data show that immigrants are employed in production, technical and professional occupations, but are much less so in the skilled trades area.

The diverse education, skills, and competencies needed in Canada’s automotive production sector may require a modification of existing recruitment strategies.

Find out more from FOCAL

The Future of Canadian Automotive Labourforce (FOCAL) Initiative is a collaboration of the Canadian Skills Training and Employment Coalition (CSTEC), the Automotive Policy Research Centre and Prism Economics and Analysis. 

Funded by the Government of Canada, you can find out more about us on our website and follow us on Social Media – LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – and through our newsletter.