Introduction
Challenges faced in terms of demography, provide Canada rationale to rely heavily on immigrants. The proportion of aging people in the total population of Canada is to increase, which coupled with the impact of shrinking population, is at the bottom of the gap between demand and supply of labor at the local level (Brown and Foot, 2015). However, immigration under the strong impact of growing trends of globalization comes in as an appropriate solution to this issue and ensures its contribution to the Canadian economy into various dimensions.
A Solution to Demographic Challenges
As discussed above, Canada is faced with severing demographic challenges threatening to the equilibrium in the labor market. On the whole, the population of the country is decreasing consistently, and current status of the decline cannot be justified while analyzed in comparison to the available resources in the region. On the other hand, baby-boomers that account for the considerably large percentage of total population are reaching the age of retirement (or inactivity) (Brown and Foot, 2015). Employable natives are not sufficient in number to fill all the available positions, or an alternative scenario will require employers to compromise largely on the quality of employee skills.
Immigrants coming from foreign countries are helping employers to bridge that gap by being considered for vacant positions. Due to immigration, there is sustained competition in the labor market to keep employers from being discouraged by an otherwise scenario. It keeps the pay-scale at a competitive level. The current growth of business and its contribution to the GDP growth owes a great deal to the participations of immigrants in employment.
Admittedly, it is threatening from a native employee perspective, as it intensifies competitive rivalry. In the absence of such competition, employers may offer high salaries to low skilled native workers due to the shortage of labor. However, its negative implications on the macroeconomic level cannot be ignored, because it may also stun business growth if employers are to suffer huge operational expenses due to unjustifiable labor cost. Slow growth of the business can also have an immensely negative impact on total annual exports and employment rate in the long run. Therefore, immigration can be seen as a blessing in disguise even for local employees, as it serves as the best mitigation agent to all the threats discussed above.
Cultural Harmony
Another crucial benefit of a mix of natives and immigrants in the Canadian population is the opportunities of learning about different cultures of the world. In this way, entrepreneurs in the underlying country can boost their knowledge, understanding, and insight into multiple ethnic groups and their values. It creates an atmosphere of cultural harmony ensuring benefits on economic as well as on social level.
People belonging to different cultures and seeking employment opportunities prefer to move to those regions (mostly) where their traditions and values are respected. Prejudice is always negative role players in this connection. They will not be attracted to the countries characterized by fanaticism and extremism. Hence, it makes Canada a source of attraction for overseas talent that can be retained in the long run due cultural harmony among employees and employers. This factor helps Canada to maintain and improve the competitive strength of a diverse range of businesses operating in the region due to the high productivity of the workforce.
Growing participation of immigration in total employable population keeps enhancing the perception of Canada as one of the safest havens for workers belonging to any particular religion, sect, nation, caste, creed, or linguistic group. In this way, the country is capable of attracting the best talent from different parts of the world ensuring the success of business in every dimension (Statistics Canada, 2012).
Skill Match
It is another crucial factor from the standpoint of employers. Organizations operating in any region look for the best talent in order to assert high competitive advantage on the basis of expertise in their workforce. However, it is not possible in a ‘low skill high wage scenario’ that takes place due to the shortage of labor (Britton, and Canadian Association of Geographers, 1996). As discussed human resource management has to sacrifice quality in such pathetic situation of the labor market. It forces them to do make with available human resources.
This situation is certainly killing to profit margins, as the companies suffer high labor cost despite low productivity. This is rather different from a shortage of labor being a shortage of skilled labor. Canada is an advanced country with a decent approach to technological advancement. The easy inflow of immigrants from different parts of the world allows the employers to find the optimized match for vacant positions specified for labor having certain skill appropriate to the advancements in technology or other technical fields. It makes the organizations achieve their ultimate objectives in the most profitable ways and creates a lucrative environment for investment.
Immigrants with specifically required skills are highly demanded, as they ensure the maximum productivity on the part of organizations due to perfect skill match. It paves the way to further technological development, which is in the best interest of the economy on the whole.
Shared Skill
This is one of the biggest benefits of cultural diversity. In Canada, immigrants come from different nationalities, castes, religions, and other ethnic groups. In addition this, they also belong to different groups of expertise. Today’s organizational behavior is characterized by team based environment. There are certain characteristics of successful teams one of which is a diversity of skills. Individuals with specific skills perfectly know how to undertake the task assigned to them in the most efficient manner (Michan and Rodger, 2000).
A Large volume of Canadian exports largely depends on this factor. The majority of organizations are composed of the diverse taskforce. Labor, in this way, is contributing handsomely to the economic growth of the country by allowing for the inflow of foreign exchange in huge amount. It is not out of place to state that Canadian products could not have achieved the same competitive status in the international market without the level of diversity in its organizations that owes immigration to the full extent.
Public Cause
As a matter of fact, immigrants are more given to public cause than locals. They try at their utmost to comply with regulations and ethical considerations enforced in the country to which they migrate. They not only donate for the public welfare but also pay their tax regularly.
In this way, immigrants stand as a huge source of tax revenue for the government. Here, it is worth mentioning that Canada is different from the U.S when it comes to taxation policy. For example, the tax is simply applied to Canadian citizens. A Canadian citizen is defined as any person such as local or immigrant settled in any part of the Canada. They not only have to pay tax on their local properties but also have to disclose their overseas assets, which is termed as “foreign assets disclosure”. Therefore, immigrants settled in Canada are liable to pay tax on their properties in their homeland (Rosenberg, 2016). Since there is a considerable proportion of immigrants in the total Canadian population, it ensures the growth of taxable population in Canada (as immigrants are considered Canadian citizens and are liable to tax related obligations).
Revenue generated though tax can be spent on multiple development projects in the best interest of public. These developments remarkably raise the economic posture of the country.
Conclusion
Immigrants serve as boosters to the growth of the Canadian economy. On the basis of key findings, it is established that immigration has grown into one of the strongest pillars of the economic strength of the country that relies heavily on the growth of business in the region. Some negative implications such as outflow of currency, increased competition for the local population, security threats, etc. should also be kept in view in this regard. However, advantages of immigration on macroeconomic level fairly outweigh the negative side of the picture.
References
Britton, J., and Canadian Association of Geographers. (1996). Canada and the Global Economy: The Geography of Structural and Technological Change. New York: McGill-Queen’s Press
Brown, and Foot. (2015). Government spending can’t solve Canada’s demographic problems. The Global and Mail. Retrieved June 29, 2016, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/government-spending-cant-solve-canadas-demographic-problems/article24902931/
Michan, S., and Rodger, S. (2000). Characteristics of Effective Teams: A Literature Review. Australian Health Review, 23(3), 201-208.
Rosenberg, R. (2016). Becoming a CanadianTax Resident. Canadian Immigrant. Retrieved June 29, 2016, from http://canadianimmigrant.ca/money/taxation/becoming-a-canadian-tax-resident
Statistics Canada. (2012). Analysis of the Canadian immigrant labour market, 2008 to 2011. Retrieved June 29, 2016, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-606-x/2012006/part-partie1-eng.htm
