Ottawa focuses on French-speaking economic immigrants – and often bypasses stronger candidates

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

The federal government is prioritizing French-speaking economic immigrants, a shift that has often seen higher-ranking applicants bypassed in the selection process, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of figures published by the Immigration Department.

Since it overhauled the Express Entry system for skilled immigration last year, Ottawa has invited 19,700 people to apply for permanent residency based on their French skills, easily more than in other new categories for selection. The government has also extended 36,150 invites to the broad pool of candidates, whose selection is based solely on points rather than specific attributes.

To pick these French speakers, the government is effectively reaching deeper into the pool of immigration candidates, which means the cutoff score for entry is frequently much lower in this category than in others. These individuals have lower expected earnings in Canada than people with higher scores.

“What’s the objective here? If it’s about economic growth, then this is not a smart policy,” said Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo. “But clearly, that’s not what this is about. They’re using economic-class programs to achieve different objectives.”

…“It is definitely going to affect our ability to select the top talent,” said Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute….

….Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of planning and accountability at Quebec’s Immigration Ministry, said it was unlikely Ottawa was selecting French speakers to curry favour with certain communities ahead of the next federal election. “There are not a lot of votes to find among francophones outside Quebec,” she said….

Source: Ottawa focuses on French-speaking economic immigrants – and often bypasses stronger candidates

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Why is this nurse working at a Toronto insurance firm? Ontario’s battle to get foreign-trained nurses into the field

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Useful analysis and report:

…The report by World Education Services (WES) Canada, a non-profit organization that assesses foreign credentials, surveyed 758 internationally educated nurses not currently working as nurses in Ontario, and found that half had not begun the province’s registration process to practise, even if they wanted to. 

The respondents cited financial barriers as the top factor affecting their ability to become registered. (Registration costs, exams and testing fees can total $3,000 at the low end.) The need to show evidence of recent nursing practice, a lack of clarity around the registration process and the time it takes to get registered also played a role.

The report also said data gaps make it “nearly impossible” to track how many internationally educated nurses are in Canada, how many intend to or are trying to qualify, and how many are practising. 

“No one can tell us how many internationally educated nurses are actually out there who could potentially be working,” said Joan Atlin, strategy, policy and research director at WES Canada. “There’s still a significantly underutilized population of nurses in the province who are still falling outside of the supports.”

The pandemic has forced health officials to confront the underutilization of skills brought by immigrants meant to fill labour needs, said Atlin, who has been engaged in foreign credential issues for two decades.

The province is well aware of the issues in the report and has worked with the College of Nurses of Ontario, which regulates the profession, to help internationally educated nurses become registered. 

In 2022, the Health Ministry introduced changes, including covering the cost of exams and registration with the college, and made it easier to meet language proficiency requirements. 

Just last month, the province made permanent a program that places these nurses under an employer’s supervision to gain work experience. The college says that as of the end of March 2024, it had matched 4,230 applicants with employers, enabling 3,324 nurses to register. 

“It has created that opportunity for health-care employers to hire those who have already applied for licensure and allow nurses to meet the practice and language proficiency requirement, by actually working and having their employer attest to their ability to work in English,” said Atlin.

In total, the college says as of April 1, it had registered more than 7,500 international applicants, with 5,215 new internationally educated nurses registered in 2022 alone. …

Source: Why is this nurse working at a Toronto insurance firm? Ontario’s battle to get foreign-trained nurses into the field

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Quebec employers group worried ‘politicized’ immigration debate will hurt jobs

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Legitimate worry, if debate becomes xenophobic rather than the impact of housing, healthcare, infrastructure:

The latest spat between Quebec and Ottawa over immigration is based on politics and not the reality of the labour market, says the head of a major employers group.

“In some ways, it’s deplorable,” said Karl Blackburn, president and CEO of the Conseil du patronat du Québec.

His comments come as Quebec Premier François Legault is threatening to hold a “referendum” on immigration if the federal government doesn’t take rapid action to stem the rising number of temporary immigrants, which include foreign workers, international students and refugee claimants.

“The majority of Quebecers think that 560,000 temporary immigrants is too much,” Legault said last week. “It’s hurting our health-care system. We don’t have enough teachers, we don’t have enough housing.”

Provincial Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said the province’s demands include stronger French-language requirements in immigration programs managed by the federal government and a reduction in the number of asylum seekers and temporary workers.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the province’s bid for full control over immigration — currently a shared responsibility — Legault said in March that his federal counterpart had showed openness to some of the province’s demands, and agreed with him on the need to reduce temporary immigrants.

Blackburn, however, disagrees that there are too many temporary workers, who he said are “working in our businesses producing goods and services.” Their numbers, he added, reflect the needs of the labour market and of an aging society.

He said he supports the Legault government’s call to reduce the number of asylum seekers in the province because Quebec has received a disproportionate share in recent years. But he denounced the federal government’s “improvised” decision to suddenly reimpose visas on some Mexican nationals earlier this year, a measure Quebec had pushed for as a way of reducing asylum claims.

He said that’s already having “direct effects” on businesses by restricting their ability to bring in workers. Any subsequent measures to reduce the number of temporary workers will further hurt Quebec’s economy as well as consumers who will no longer have access to the same goods and services, he said.

“It’s as if our governments knowingly agreed to cause companies to lose contracts for reasons of political partisanship and not based on economic growth, which is nonsensical in a way,” Blackburn said.

Politicians are unfairly blaming immigrants for shortages of housing, daycare spaces and teachers, when the real problem is government failure to invest in those areas, he added.

The long-running debate between Quebec and Ottawa has flared in recent months. Earlier this year, the premier wrote to Trudeau about the influx of asylum seekers entering Quebec, which has welcomed more than 65,000 of the 144,000 would-be refugees who came to Canada last year.

Quebec has demanded Ottawa reimburse the province $1 billion — the amount Quebec says it has cost to care for asylum seekers over the last three years.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said this week that no country would ever give up total control over immigration. But he said he and his provincial counterpart are having good discussions and agree on many matters, including limiting visas to Mexicans and protecting French.

While Legault has blamed the federal government for the “exploding” number of newcomers, the director of a research institute and co-author of a recent study on temporary immigrants says both Ottawa and Quebec have brought in measures in recent years to facilitate their arrival.

Emna Braham says the surge in temporary immigrants is due to a combination of factors, including a tight labour market, post-secondary institutions recruiting internationally, and programs by both Ottawa and Quebec to allow companies to bring in more workers.

She said numbers have now climbed higher than either level of government expected, likely because temporary immigration is administered through a series of programs that are separate from one another.

“We had a set of measures that could be justified individually, but there was no reflection on what the impact will be of all these cumulative measures on the flow of immigrants that Quebec and Canada accept,” she said in a phone interview.

Both Braham and Blackburn point out that the high number of temporary workers in Quebec is also a result of the province’s decision to cap the number of new permanent residents it accepts each year to around 50,000, creating a bottleneck of people awaiting permanent status.

“If the government of Quebec had set its thresholds at the level they should be to meet the needs of the labour market, we wouldn’t be in this situation where (there) is a significant increase in temporary workers,” Blackburn said.

Braham said the moment is right for provinces and the federal government to develop a coordinated approach to immigration, and to ensure a system is put in place to ensure both long- and short-term needs are met.

Source: Quebec employers group worried ‘politicized’ immigration debate will hurt jobs

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Alberta’s population growth is breaking records, but signs of strain are showing

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Of note, affordability issue in Alberta:

…But what is happening right now in Alberta is different than in the past, said Mark Parsons, chief economist for ATB Financial.

“Alberta’s is a relatively strong economy, so the fast rate of job growth is contributing to the influx of people coming into the province, no question,” Mr. Parsons said.

“What’s different this time is that affordability is playing an important role – particularly housing affordability.”

Experts say Canada’s housing crisis, and the affordability of the Alberta real estate market compared with places such as Toronto and Vancouver, is one of the reasons the province has been the destination for so many U-Hauls and moving trucks.

In fact, housing affordability was one of the carrots the Alberta government dangled with its “Alberta is Calling” ad campaign, which ran in the spring of 2023 in Southern Ontario and Atlantic Canada. The campaign urged Canadians who can’t afford a home where they live to consider moving to Alberta, with its comparatively high salaries and lower real estate prices.

While the campaign was a smashing success from a marketing perspective, Alberta’s population boom has downsides. The sharp uptick in residents has helped drive economic growth, supporting retail and restaurant sales in the province and leading to a flurry of construction activity, but it has also made Alberta’s famously affordable real estate less affordable.

“In 2022, it felt like everyone was saying, ’Alberta’s on sale, this is great, this is amazing,’” said Calgary real estate agent Dawn Herron Maser.

“But now people who are from here are starting to feel like, ’Is it really that much on sale any more? Because we’re here in Alberta and we’re struggling. We’re struggling to buy our homes here.’”

In Calgary, the benchmark home price in March was $597,600, nearly 11 per cent higher than the previous year, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Anecdotes abound of wild bidding wars between buyers willing to waive all conditions and offer tens of thousands more than the asking price, a phenomenon that has become prevalent in hot markets such as Toronto and Vancouver.

Calgary and Edmonton also saw the sharpest acceleration in rent prices among major Canadian cities in 2023. In Calgary specifically, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in 2023 jumped 14.3 per cent, the highest year-over-year growth in the country and the sharpest single-year rise in rent growth the city has seen since 2007, data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. show.

Adam Legge, president of the Business Council of Alberta, said new homes are simply not being built fast enough to keep up with the province’s growth. And there are other signs of strain showing as well. New arrivals to Alberta are struggling to find family doctors, and unprecedented school enrolment growth has led to overcrowded classrooms.

There is also a shortage of construction workers, welders and all of the other skilled tradespeople needed to build everything from houses to schools to roads as quickly as possible.

“We just aren’t seeing a sufficient inflow of new Albertans, either interprovincially or internationally, coming with those kinds of skills and credentials,” Mr. Legge said.

While the pace of population growth in Alberta is expected to moderate this year and in 2025, ATB Financial predicts it will still be strong compared with most other parts of Canada and developed economies around the world.

In the long term, sustained growth is likely. The province’s economy is diversifying, creating opportunities for workers in non-oil and gas-related fields such as technology and aviation, and the proximity of the Rocky Mountains and some of Canada’s best-loved national parks continues to be a draw for tourists.

The Alberta government’s own projections call for the province’s population to hit six million people as early as 2039.

“We really need to start looking at Alberta, and the West in general, in a different way,” said Mr. Ernst, with the Centre for Newcomers, adding that both provincial and federal governments need to prepare for the growth that is coming by investing in housing, infrastructure, programs and education.

“We’ve got to really think critically about the allocation of resources in this country – really understanding where people are moving, where people are setting up, where some of the population pressures are.”

Mr. Legge agreed, adding it’s vital that Alberta prepare for its future by addressing areas that are already under strain because of the province’s rapid growth.

“The message ’Alberta is Calling’ is clearly working, which is a great thing in the sense of growth for the province and the people who are bringing their skills and talents and passions and entrepreneurship here,” he said.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we don’t become victims of our own success, and tackle some of the challenges that are already putting strain on our quality of life.”

Source: Alberta’s population growth is breaking records, but signs of strain are showing

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Ottawa accused of failing to crack down on unethical immigration consultants

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Yet another policy fail?

….Earl Blaney, a licensed immigration consultant from London, Ont., said “mass volumes of immigration applications are submitted overseas by unauthorized immigration representatives,” adding that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is well aware of the situation.

In 2019, through an omnibus budget bill, the government gave itself the authority to create a regime of penalties, including fines, to deal with violations by anyone providing advice to people making immigration and citizenship applications.

IRCC, in a parliamentary reply three weeks ago to Senator Don Plett, the Conservative leader in the Senate, said the department had not yet imposed any fines on consultants because “the compliance regime for immigration and citizenship consultants is not yet in force” and “the regulatory authorities to do so do not yet exist.”

Paul Chiang, the parliamentary secretary to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, said in the reply that there had been delays in implementing the regime, partly owing to the pandemic.

The department is currently working with the Department of Justice to draft the regulations, and the regime is expected to be in place between this fall and the winter of 2025, he said.

Mr. Plett accused the government of “incompetence” and said he plans to raise the delay in the Senate next week.

….But Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec said consultants “practising outside the country cannot be reasonably monitored by their college,” which is a problem.

Source: Ottawa accused of failing to crack down on unethical immigration consultants

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Canadian Immigration Tracker: February 2024 Update

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Overall monthly decreases in most programs.

The percentage of temporary residents fell to a more normal 57 percent (average for 2023 was 50 percent).

Asylum claimants increased slightly and since September 2023 are averaging about 16,000 per month. Impact of Mexican visa requirement should be seen in next month’s data although visitor visa data now showing visas issued to Mexicans (only 7 in February).

March web data shows no increase in study permit interests from February while applications increased slightly. Permits decreased however and expect next few months will show full impact of caps.

Citizenship program continues to naturalize an average of 35,000 persons since May 2023, between 80-90 percent in virtual ceremonies.

Slide 3 has the overall numbers and change

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Conservative immigration policy should focus on the goal of citizenship: Tory critic

2024/04/13 Leave a comment

Still fairly general but nevertheless interesting and relatively non-controversial. However, the possible transfer of additional immigration powers to Quebec, and further devolution to other provinces such as Alberta, bears watching. Will also be interesting to see how strong a line a Conservative government will take with respect to temporary workers given business community pressures:

Conservative immigration policy should be focused on the ultimate goal of citizenship, the party’s critic on the file said Thursday while moderating a panel in Ottawa.

Tom Kmiec criticized the sharp increase in temporary residents in Canada, as a large number of potential immigrants compete for few permanent resident opportunities. 

“We don’t want people just to come here, work here for a few years, and then leave,” Kmiec said in an interview after the panel at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference.

“You can see the numbers are getting worse and worse and worse.”

The panel members explored politically conservative solutions to Canada’s ballooning population growth, which the Liberal government admits is becoming unsustainable. 

Canada should focus on integrating people into Canada on permanent basis, Kmiec said.

That means moving beyond immigration targets and filling labour gaps to an approach that focuses on making newcomers part of “the Canadian family,” he said.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller promised in March that Ottawa would put a “soft cap” on the number of temporary residents allowed to come to Canada. Those targets are expected to be set in September. 

Miller also levelled out the number of new permanent residents expected to come to Canada in 2026, putting at least a temporary halt to year-after-year increases to immigration levels. 

But the fix will require focusing on the experiences people have when they come to Canada, including reducing massive processing backlogs, Kmiec said. 

“Immigration is not accounting,” he said.

There has not been enough emphasis on citizenship in recent years in Canada, Aaron Wudrick, the director of the the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s domestic policy program, told the panel. 

The system has largely become an economic exercise, he said. 

The Liberals have come under increased scrutiny over the last year for some of the consequences of the rapidly increasing number of temporary residents, including the impact on the availability and affordability of housing. 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has suggested the possibility of tying immigration levels to new housing starts in response. 

That would likely mean lowering immigration levels, at least temporarily, Wudrick said, but doing so will have consequences.

“A lot of businesses in this country have a difficult time filling low-wage work, the solution has been to import cheap labour,” he said. 

When that low-cost labour is no longer available, prices are likely to go up, he said. 

“There’s not a magic bullet, where we’re just going to cut the numbers and suddenly all these problems are going to go away.”

Quebec Conservative Leader Eric Duhaime, who also appeared on the panel, advocated for giving provinces more control of the immigration in their jurisdictions.

Quebec already sets its own immigration targets, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has argued her province should have the same power.

The federal Conservative policy on that will likely be part of the party’s next election platform, Kmiec said.

“That’s something being actively debated, I think, within the (conservative) movement more broadly,” he said. 

Source: Conservative immigration policy should focus on the goal of citizenship: Tory critic

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Olive: To address housing crisis, Canada needs to lower annual immigration intake

2024/04/13 Leave a comment

Late to the party, almost appears that it required PM Trudeau’s a Captain Renaud “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling [high levels of immigration] is going on in here!” for Olive to argue for reduced levels (and he largely ignores the major problem, the massive increase in temporary migration):

…So, we must address the demand side of the supply and demand imbalance.

Justin Trudeau has said as much. “We’ve seen a massive spike in temporary immigration,” the prime minister said in an April 2 press conference.

“(It) has grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.”

And so, Ottawa has announced a 20 per cent reduction in new temporary residents — international students, temporary foreign workers and refugee claimants — over three years, to a still sizable two million.

Yet Ottawa is determined to further increase housing demand with its targets of 485,000 permanent residents in 2024, and 500,000 in each of 2025 and 2026.

That plan to add close to 1.5 million more permanent residents by 2026 follows the record population increase of 1.2 million in 2022-23.

Instead, Canada needs to lower annual immigration intake to about 300,000 permanent residents in each of the next few years. That was the level as recently as 2020.

The U.K., Australia and New Zealand, all coping with the same housing crisesas Canada after surges of newcomers, are each planning to reduce immigration levels.

Rishi Sunak, the British PM, has said U.K. immigration inflows are “far too high” after recent government reports that immigration soared to a record 745,000 in 2022.

Australia plans to cut its migrant intake by about 50 per cent over two years, after welcoming a record 510,000 immigrants in the year ending June 2023.

And New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said his country’s net immigration increase of 118,835 people in the year through September “doesn’t feel sustainable for New Zealand at all.”

U.S. immigration policy is already restrictive and would likely become more so in a second Trump presidency.

A new Canadian housing strategy would match immigration targets with realistic expectations of increased housing supply.

A meaningful reduction in newcomers for a few years would give us the chance to develop that balanced model — to determine what types of new housing we need and where to build it.

In time, we can carefully raise immigration levels again once we’re confident that newcomers and those already here will have an affordable, decent place to live.

Source: To address housing crisis, Canada needs to lower annual immigration intake

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Five Key Facts About Black Immigrants’ Experiences in the United States

2024/04/13 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis. Would be interesting to compare Black immigrants with native African Americans (others may have done):

Black immigrants are a growing share of the country’s population and make up 8% of all immigrants. Nearly half (47%) of Black immigrants in the U.S. are from the Caribbean, while about four in ten (43%) are from sub-Saharan Africa, with smaller shares coming from South America and Europe (3% from both regions). Most Black immigrants are U.S. citizens (68%), while one in five (21%) has a valid visa or green card and about one in ten (8%) is likely undocumented. Like immigrants overall, Black immigrants come to the U.S. seeking more opportunities for themselves and their children, and most report improved educational opportunities, employment, and financial situations as a result of moving to the U.S. However, Black immigrants report disproportionate levels of unfair treatment and discrimination in their workplaces, communities, and when seeking health care, reflecting the intersectional impacts of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Below are five key facts about their experiences, drawing on the 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants, with its sample size of 3,358 immigrant adults (18 and older), including 274 Black immigrant adults.

Three in four (76%) Black immigrants are working, and most say their situations are improved as a result of coming to the U.S.

Like immigrants overall, the primary reasons Black immigrants say they came to the U.S. are for better economic and job opportunities (87%), better educational opportunities (81%), and a better future for their children (80%), and most say that moving to the U.S. has made them better off in terms of educational opportunities for themselves and their children (85%), their financial situation (74%), and their employment situation (74%). About two thirds (65%) also say they are better off in terms of their safety (Figure 1).

Black immigrants face disproportionate financial challenges, including in paying for health care.

About four in ten (44%) Black immigrants have lower incomes (household income less than $40,000 per year), reflecting that most employed Black immigrants are working for hourly pay (69%). Reflecting these lower incomes, half (50%) of Black immigrants say they or someone in their household had trouble paying for at least one basic necessity in the past 12 months, including rent/mortgage, food, health, health care, or utilities or other bills, about twice the share of White (27%) and Asian immigrants (20%) who say the same (Figure 2). Specifically, three in ten (30%) Black immigrants report that their household had problems paying for health care in the past 12 months compared to about one in six White immigrants (17%) and about one in eight Asian immigrants (12%).

Most (56%) employed Black immigrants say they have faced at least one form of discrimination or unfair treatment at work asked about in the survey.

A majority of employed Black immigrants (56%) report experiencing at least one type of discrimination or form of unfair treatment at work, similar to the share of employed Hispanic immigrants who report this (55%), and higher than the shares of employed Asian (44%) and White immigrants (31%) who report the same. Among employed Black immigrants, about half (47%) say they were given fewer opportunities for promotions or raises than people born in the U.S., three in ten (31%) say they were paid less than people born in the U.S. for doing the same job, a quarter (25%) say that they had worse shifts or less control over their work hours or than people born in the U.S., and about one in five say they were not paid for all of the hours that they worked or not given overtime pay (22%) or were harassed or threatened by someone at their place of work because they were an immigrant (22%) (Figure 3). Beyond experiences with mistreatment, about one in three (34%) Black immigrants with less than a college education say they are overqualified for their job, saying that they have more skills and education than the job requires, with this share rising to about half (53%) of those with a college degree or higher.

Black immigrants report disproportionate levels of unfair treatment in social and police interactions.

Most (55%) Black immigrants say they have experienced worse treatment than people born in the U.S. in at least one of the following places: a store or restaurant, in interactions with the police, or when buying or renting a home, higher than the shares who report this among Hispanic (42%), Asian (36%), or White immigrants (22%). Specifically, about four in ten (38%) Black immigrants report experiencing worse treatment in police interactions, about a third (35%) report this in a store or restaurant, and about a quarter (26%) report worse treatment when buying or renting a home (Figure 4). Moreover, roughly one in three (34%) Black immigrants say they have been criticized for speaking a language other than English, and about four in ten (45%) say they have been told they should “go back to where you came from,” higher than the share of Hispanic (34%), Asian (32%), or White (25%) immigrants who report this experience.

Among those who have received health care in the U.S., Black immigrants are more likely than other immigrant groups to report being treated unfairly by a health care provider.

About four in ten (38%) Black immigrants who have received or tried to receive health care in the U.S. report being treated differently or unfairly by a health care provider, higher than the shares of Hispanic (28%), Asian (21%), and White immigrants (18%) who say this. The share of Black immigrants who report unfair treatment by a health care provider includes about a quarter (25%) who say they were treated unfairly because of their race, ethnic background, or skin color, 23% who say they were mistreated because of their health insurance or ability to pay, and about one in six (16%) who say that they were treated differently due to their accent or ability to speak English (Figure 5).

Source: Five Key Facts About Black Immigrants’ Experiences in the United States

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The impact of immigration settings, affordability, and job opportunities on international students’ study abroad decisions

2024/04/12 Leave a comment

Interesting comparative study:

New research underlines the extent to which international students look closely at work opportunities and immigration policy in general when comparing potential destinations for study abroad. By extension, the research suggests:

  • How important it is that education institutions clearly communicate to students the most current information available about visa, work permits, and immigration opportunities in their country;
  • That a lag between government announcements about policies and governments communicating in a timely way with educators affected by these policies can greatly hamper institutions’ ability to communicate as well as they would like to with students and agents;
  • That new immigration settings in Australia, Canada, and the UK are affecting international students’ motivation to study in these countries.

AECC survey goes out to students in top student markets around the world

Overseas education consultancy AECC conducted a survey in March 2024 of more than 8,300 prospective students in 124 countries (but was not widely distributed in China). The most represented nationalities were:

  • India
  • Philippines
  • Nigeria
  • Nepal
  • Sri Lanka
  • Bangladesh
  • Indonesia
  • Malaysia
  • Vietnam
  • Singapore

The survey found that more than half of surveyed students were interested in working in their host country after studying (56%), while a smaller proportion (28%) hoped to emigrate to that country. Only 16% wanted to leave immediately after completing their studies.

Not surprising – given the high demand for work experience abroad – is that 79% of students said post-study work rights were extremely important to them when considering study abroad. Another 19% said they were moderately important and less than 3% said they were not important.

The next screenshot from the AECC slide deck underlines that job opportunities and work rights are about as influential as quality of education for international students making choices about study abroad. Much lower on the list of priorities are migration opportunities.

Top motivations for choosing a study abroad destination. Source: AECC

Demand is decreasing for Australia, Canada, and the UK

About 1 in 6 surveyed students said that they had changed their destination preference in the past 12 months. Among those students, interest had increased for New Zealand (+86%), Germany (+36%), and the US (+13%). It had decreased markedly for Canada (-32%) and had also weakened for the UK (-16%) and Australia (-9%).

When looking at the screen shot below, it’s important to note (1) the asterisks signalling that the increases for New Zealand and Germany are in a context of relatively smaller volumes choosing those destinations overall, and that 2022 data findings were in a context of the first “post-COVID” era (e.g., Australia had just opened its borders).

Trends in students’ preferences for select destinations. Source: AECC

Of those students who had changed their destination preference, most were motivated to do so because of the high fees in their original country of choice (24%), but significant proportions were also influenced by “negative policy changes for international students” (14%) and “better job opportunities in my [new] preferred country.”

Students who changed preferred destinations were most likely to have done so because of affordability and work opportunities. Source: AECC

Ascent One survey highlights need for clear communications to students and agents

Ascent One – a platform for higher education providers to manage agent networks, admissions, and marketing – also published findings this month of its own survey of just over 1,000 current, former, and prospective international students from China, India, Philippines, and Colombia. These students were asked specifically about their experience relating to studying in Australia. China, India, Philippines, and Colombia are four of Australia’s top 5 student source countries (Vietnam is the other – #3 currently after China and India).

From this survey, an important and potentially worrisome finding emerged: 41% of prospective and current students were not aware of current migration settings in Australia. Of those who did know, over three-quarters (77%) had to find out on their own. Another 15% learned about Australian visa and work policies through their agent.

More than a quarter (27%) of prospective students who had found about tighter immigration controls (which dovetail with soaring visa rejection rates said they are less likely to pursue plans to study in Australia. (The trend of affected student demand has emerged in IDP and Studyportals research as well this year – and for Canada and the UK as well as Australia.)

The study also found that:

  • The main reason surveyed international students choose to study in Australia is “better career opportunities post-study” (63%);
  • Only 23% of current students are working in a job that is related to their studies;
  • 44% of former students are working in a job that is not related to their studies.

Of those who said they were not working in a job related to their studies, more than a third (37%) said they were ineligible to apply for a job – or had been rejected for a job – because they did not have an Australian permanent resident visa or full-time work rights.

Markets like certainty, and student markets are no exception

Confusion about immigration policies, visas, and work rights is all the more likely this year in Australia – as well as Canada – given a lag between announcements of new settings and institutions being fully briefed on what this meant for their operations and students. This has, in turn, made it difficult for institutions to provide the kind of clarity and communications they would ideally like provide their students and agents.

Despite the more challenging environment for international students in Australia, however, the Ascent One survey found that 85% of current and former students enrolled in Australian institutions would recommend Australia as a place to study to their friends and family in their home country,

Of the survey findings, Naresh Gulati, founder and CEO of Ascent One said:

“Our survey reveals a big problem right now – the country is sacrificing future Australians at our own cost. The government’s decision to target international student visas to cut migration numbers is already having an impact. Our survey found that of the students who knew about the recent migration policy changes, over three-quarters (77%) found out about the changes themselves and only 15% via their agent, revealing a big communication gap between the government, education providers, agents and students that needs to be fixed. While the majority of students still recommend Australia as a place to study, our reputation as a world-class destination for study is shaky at best and needs urgent attention.”

Source: The impact of immigration settings, affordability, and job opportunities on international students’ study abroad decisions

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