Sultan Aitekenov and his wife, Makhabbat Aitekenova, who came to Canada from Kazakhstan as part of the Federal Skilled Worker Program, walk near their home in Edmonton, Alberta on Dec. 7. Despite skills in data analytics and a diligent job search, Mr. Aitekenov has not been able to find employment in more than a year of searching.Mr. Aitekenov immigrated to this country in 2023 through a federal skilled-worker program, settling with his wife, Makhabbat, in Edmonton.
But their arrival has coincided with a difficult labour market for immigrants, and he’s struggled to find work in his field of data analytics, despite years of experience in his native Kazakhstan. Worse yet, he can’t find work outside of his area of expertise, either. “I expected that I would face challenges, but I didn’t expect it would be this hard to find a job – even the so-called survival jobs,” said the 33-year-old Mr. Aitekenov, referring to lower-level employment. Canada’s labour market has slowed considerably over the past two years, and the effects have been especially severe for newcomers. The unemployment rate for recent immigrants – those who became permanent residents within the previous five years – has risen to 9.2 per cent as of November, up 1.2 percentage points from a year earlier. In contrast, the unemployment rate for Canadian-born workers is 4.1 per cent, with a smaller increase of 0.5 percentage points. To make ends meet, newcomers will often settle for positions that don’t match their education, training and skills. But research shows that these survival jobs – as they’re known in immigrant communities – can devalue résumés and trap workers in a cycle of overqualificatio