Canadian immigrant labor up in 2007

Ottawa-- Employment in Canada among immigrants rose by 52,000, or 2.1 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, the Statistics Canada agency reported Tuesday.

Employment for immigrants aged 25 to 54 reached nearly 2.5 million, of which 90 percent was full-time work, the report said.

The vast majority of the immigrant job gains were for women, about 47,000, StatsCan said. More than half of the growth, or 28,000 jobs, were in Quebec, and the majority of growth was among those who had been in Canada for more than 10 years, the release said.

University-educated immigrants had the largest gains in immigrant employment, all in full-time work.

Overall employment rates for Canadian-born residents rose 0.7 percent to 83.8 percent compared with a 0.2 percent gain among immigrants to 77.9 percent employment, the agency said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.