What is the impact of immigration on Canada's economy and labor force?

Immigration is central to Canada's economy and labour force. Canada admitted about 471,000 new permanent residents in 2023 under the federal Immigration Levels Plan, alongside about one million temporary residents (workers, students, and protected persons). The 2024 plan calibrated permanent admissions back to about 395,000 and the 2025 plan reduced further to about 395,000, balancing growth ambitions against housing and service capacity. About 23 per cent of Canadians are foreign-born, the highest share among G7 countries.

Immigration drives almost all of Canada's net population growth. Canada's fertility rate fell to 1.33 children per woman in 2022, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. Without immigration, the working-age population would be shrinking. The Royal Bank of Canada estimated in 2023 that immigration contributes more than 100 per cent of net labour-force growth in Canada and is projected to do so for the foreseeable future.

Skilled-worker immigration is delivered primarily through Express Entry (launched 2015), an online system that ranks applicants under three programmes (the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Federal Skilled Trades Program, and the Canadian Experience Class) using the Comprehensive Ranking System. Provincial Nominee Programs let provinces select candidates for their regional labour markets, accounting for about a third of permanent admissions. Quebec runs its own immigration system under the Canada-Quebec Accord of 1991, with Programme régulier des travailleurs qualifiés.

Other pathways include family reunification (about 25 per cent of admissions), refugee resettlement and asylum (about 15 per cent), the Atlantic Immigration Programme (made permanent in 2022), the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (2019), the Tech Talent Strategy (2023), and the Caregivers Programme. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the International Mobility Program bring non-permanent workers in agriculture, construction, healthcare, and high-skilled occupations. The Refugee Convention obligations of 1969 commit Canada to processing protection claims under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of 2001.