Ontario missing strategy to match immigration to labour market needs: auditor

Of note but not surprising as once in Canada, immigrants like all people will pursue what appears be be best for them, whether in terms of economics or social and family considerations. Auditor recommendations for better data on where they end up make sense, allowing for further analysis and understanding of their reasons:

Immigrants nominated for permanent residency under Ontario’s provincial program aren’t always going to the regions or sectors that need them the most, a new auditor general report found.

The observation was made by Auditor General Shelley Spence in the audit of the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) included in her 2024 annual report, which was released on Tuesday.

According to the report, about 37 per cent of nominees with job offers intended to settle outside of the Greater Toronto Area between 2019 and 2023.

Of those, only about three per cent of job-offer nominees landed in Northern Ontario.

“The ministry does not have an overall strategy towards a needs-based distribution of nominees across the province and particularly to regions outside of the GTA,” the auditor wrote, adding that one of OINP’s objectives is to “spread the benefits of immigration to all parts of the province and help address Ontario’s labour market needs.”

Spence noted that other provinces and the federal government have mechanisms to encourage immigration into less populated areas.

For instance, the federal government launched the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot “to boost economic immigration to smaller communities and provide a pathway for skilled foreign workers to gain permanent residency,” she wrote.

Five of the 11 participating communities are in Northern Ontario — North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay — and, as of Dec. 31, 2023, almost 4,600 permanent residents across Canada had come through this pilot, Spence found.

Spence did outline a number of programs launched by the Doug Ford government meant to encourage nominees to settle outside of the GTA, like higher scoring for those with offers elsewhere and a two-year regional pilot to bring 300 nominees to Chatham-Kent, Cornwall and Quinte West/Belleville communities.

The pilot resulted in 147 OINP nominations. However, the auditor said, “No follow-up was conducted to see how successful the individuals were in these communities, or if they continue to reside in these communities.”

The government should also look at specific labour demands in those regions, which are different from those in the GTA, the auditor suggested. Nominations have not helped address the increasing job vacancies for registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses in central Ontario, she noted.

The report said that within the five-year analysis period, there were 1,730 nursing vacancies in Central Ontario and 11 OINP nominations.

The auditor recommends collecting information on intended settlement locations for all nominee streams and monitoring progress toward regional targets. The government has accepted this recommendation and pledged to “work to integrate available and reliable regional labour market data into our targets where possible.”

Source: Ontario missing strategy to match immigration to labour market needs: auditor