In order to address the labor shortage in Canada, the country is planning to boost its immigration targets and is hoping to allow a record number of newcomers into the country, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced on Tuesday.
The recently released census data in Canada indicates that a huge population is heading toward retirement. Currently, one in seven persons in Canada is between the age of 55 and 64.
The job vacancies in Canada have now reached an all-time high of one million and businesses are facing financial losses due to labor shortage.
Canadians understand the need to continue to grow our population if we’re going to meet the needs of the labor force,” Fraser commented.
Sean Fraser said that the government is now hoping to double the intake of immigrants from 2014 levels to 4,31,000. In 2021, the country welcomed the highest number of immigrants in a single year with visas to over 4,05,000 people.
The country has also revised its future targets and is now hoping to attract 4,65,000 immigrants in 2023, 4,85,000 immigrants in 2024 and reach the number of 5,00,000 by 2025. This plan, if achieved, will be a massive increase from 1.3 million new immigrants settled in Canada from 2016 to 2021
The country aims to achieve more than 60% of total admission to be of economic migrants by 2025, the minister informed. Canada also plans to reunite more families with members abroad but will allow slightly fewer refugees.
Canada’s population has reached 39 million, according to the 2021 census and almost one in every four people is born abroad.