(The following article is from the September 16-30, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)


Recent immigrants not only have poorer job situations than Canadian-born workers, but immigrant men are also twice as likely to sustain workplace injuries that require medical care compared with men born in Canada.

     The Institute for Work & Health (IWH) has released two new studies comparing work conditions and injury rates between immigrants and workers born in Canada.

     "Immigrants with five or fewer years in Canada are more likely to have higher qualifications than their jobs require, to have physically demanding jobs, and to work fewer hours than they want to," says Peter Smith, a scientist at IWH and the lead researcher of both studies. New immigrants are also less likely to have supervisory responsibilities, to be unionized or to have access to employment benefits.

     Results from the study were presented at Statistics Canada's socio-economic conference. The findings were based on interviews with more than 76,000 workers, from four waves of Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics.

     The second study, published in the journal, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, looked at work-related injuries in immigrants. The researchers analyzed information from more than 97,000 workers who took part in the Canadian Community Health Survey in 2003 and 2005.

     This study shows that new immigrant men report a high rate of medically treated injuries result from work. One explanation might be that new immigrants have more severe work injuries because they work in more hazardous settings, suggest Smith and co-author Cameron Mustard, IWH president. More information on immigrants' work hazards and injury risks is needed to confirm this explanation.

     Both IWH studies highlight work-related issues in immigrants that can also affect their health.

     "Being overqualified for your job, for instance, is associated with declines in health," notes Smith. Limited access to non-wage employment benefits, such as disability insurance, may result in financial insecurity if a person is unable to work.

     The research also shows that conditions may be worse for certain types of immigrants, and may linger for years. Immigrants who are visible minorities, whose mother tongue is not English, or whose highest degree is from outside Canada are more likely to be overqualified, to lack supervisory responsibilities and to be underemployed. Up to 20 years later, immigrants are still less likely to receive non-wage benefits or be unionized.