Immigration has lowered wages in both Canada and the United States says a new study by Statistics Canada.

Canada
The main impact of large numbers of highly-skilled immigrants coming to Canada has been to push down the earnings of highly educated Canadians.  Canadians with postgraduate degrees saw their real weekly wages tumble 7 percent between 1980 and 2000. 

“It all boils down to the skill mix… Canada gets more skilled immigrants than America and they have a mitigating effect on wage inequality.”

United States
In the United States the opposite has happened. Most immigrants to the USA have been less skilled. The newcomers have depressed the earnings of low-paid Americans and increased the gap relative to the highest-paid.

Different Immigration Policies
According to Statistics Canada, the differences in skill mixes between Canada and the United States have been caused by differences in immigration policies during the last four decades.

Canadian immigration policies since the 1960s have encouraged high-skilled workers to come to the country. During the same period, American immigration policy has emphasised family reunification, resulting in a disproportionate number of low-skilled immigrants.

Significant illegal immigration to the United States since 1965 - an estimated 10.3 million as of 2005 - mostly from Mexico, has also contributed to the tendency for US immigrant workers to be lower-skilled than those who entered Canada.

Immigration to the United States, moreover, has tended to increase the supply of young workers; the opposite has been seen in Canada.

Immigration Numbers
Between 1980 and 2000, immigration increased the male labour force by 13.2% in Canada and 11.1% in the United States. In each country, a migration-induced increase of 10% in the labour supply was associated with a 3% to 4% drop in weekly earnings.

28 May 2007

Increasing energy prices and demand have led to consistent growth in Canada’s oil and gas sector in the past 10 years.   Canada is now the world’s eighth-largest producer of crude oil, pumping 2.5 million of the world’s 86 million barrels per day. Each barrel fetches $70.00 (U.S.) - an enormous increase on December 2001’s $15.95 per barrel.

Statistics Canada’s  the Economy looks at trends in Canada’s energy sector over the last ten years and predicts that, as demand continues to rise, oil production will become increasingly profitable in hard-to-reach places like Alberta’s oil sands.

During the past decade oil and gas industry employment has increased faster than Canada’s average - total employment in oil and gas amounted to roughly 300,000 in 2006, up from around 245,000 in 1997. Exploration, extraction and production are responsible for the increase, increasing from 107,000 in 1997 to roughly 177,000 today. The majority (75%) of the jobs are in Alberta.

The impact on wages has been pronounced. In 1997, employees in oil and gas extraction earned 58% more than the average worker. By 2006, this gap had widened to 80%.

Oil and gas extraction workers earned an average of $30.36 (₤14.09) an hour in 2006, compared with the Canadian average of $16.73 (£7.72). 

The ‘midstream’ component of the gas and oil industry includes pipelines, rail, truck and tanker transportation, and storage. Just as for oil and gas extraction, workers in these industries are primarily male and have substantially higher average hourly earnings $34.36 (£15.85) than the Canadian average.

The ‘downstream’ component consists of refining and marketing, and includes refineries, gas distribution utilities, oil product wholesalers, service stations and petrochemical companies. Wages averaged $14.78 (£6.82) in this sector.

Jobs in the oil and gas industry are much more likely to be non-unionised and far more likely to be held by full-time, male, workers than average.

Not all of the effects of the oil and gas boom have been positive. Alberta’s infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the rate of growth - leading to housing shortages and overcrowding in schools and hospitals.  Additionally, Alberta’s boom has resulted in labour shortages in all industries, driving up wages and prices across the board. However, wage increases in Alberta have still not been sufficient to attract the much-needed labour, and many businesses have had to reduce their hours as a result of staffing shortages.

25 May 2007

Despite the stereotypical image of nonchalant, lounging teenagers, Canadian teenagers carry a heavier load than people give them credit for, according to a new study.  Compared with nine other countries from the OECD, Canadian teenagers ranked first in terms of average hours spent on unpaid and paid labour during the school week.

Furthermore, averaged over the week, including school and non-school days, teenagers did an average of 7.1 hours of unpaid and paid labour per day in 2005. This 50-hour workweek was virtually the same as that of adult Canadians aged 20 to 64 doing the same activities.

The Statistics Canada study found that the teenagers did an average of 9.2 hours of schoolwork, homework, paid work and housework on school days and 3.5 hours on weekends.

The time teenagers spent on these skill-enhancing activities is arguably a positive investment in their long-term personal and economic well being. However, not surprisingly, the relatively high workloads involved do result in some stress.

For example, 16% considered themselves workaholics, 39% felt under constant pressure to accomplish more than they could handle, and nearly two-thirds (64%) cut back on sleep to get things done.

Also, only 45% of teenagers with high stress reported being very happy and/or very satisfied with life, significantly lower than that of teenagers with little or no stress (around 72%).

After school attendance, homework was the most time-consuming unpaid activity for teenagers, with 60% doing an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes every day.

Family environment is a strong predictor of this activity. Teenagers were significantly more likely to do homework and more of it if both parents had a university education, if they lived in a two-parent intact family (where a divorce has not taken place), and if their parents were foreign-born.

Interestingly, boys with Canadian-born parents did significantly less homework than girls in similar families and less than either girls or boys with immigrant parents. Also important, teenagers with demanding paid jobs (20 hours or more per week) did significantly less homework than those not employed.

Although some studies have shown part-time student employment to be positively linked with personal responsibility, dependability and future productivity, an excess of it can interfere with school. Furthermore, this study shows that teenagers with long paid workweeks reported higher levels of personal stress.

Nearly 4 in 10 teenagers did some housework daily, averaging about one hour. Although overall gender differences have narrowed over the past 20 years, in 2005, girls with immigrant parents did significantly more housework than boys in such families.

24 May 2007

Canadian house prices as of April 2007 are increasing in all but one of Canada’s main cities.  While Calgary’s prices have stalled, Vancouver’s and Edmonton’s in the west have reached new highs.  In the east, Toronto, Ottowa and Montreal house prices are also increasing.  

Vancouver
The average price for a detached house in Greater Vancouver was $695,000, an increase of 11.9% from last year. “We’re still in one of the best markets real estate has ever had in Greater Vancouver. Sales are higher than historical norms and homes are selling very quickly, usually with multiple-offers,” says REBGV president Brian Naphtali. 

Calgary
The average sale price for a family home has declined moderately from March, from $462,000 to $458,000. “This is a stabilising month with sales and listings down moderately from March. However new listings in April are approximately 1,550 ahead of April 2006,” remarked CREB President, Ron Stanners.

Edmonton
The average family house price has risen to $413,000. “The Edmonton market is just catching up to market increases that appeared in other major markets one or two years ago,” said Carolyn Pratt, president of the EREB. She noted that there are more homes being listed than last year at this time and inventory is growing slowly. “Price increases may moderate slightly as the market returns to pre-boom levels but I do not anticipate that actual prices will decrease.”

Toronto
Average prices climbed three percent to $379,000 compared with last April’s $367,000. Property transactions reached 9,452, the best single-month total ever recorded. An average detached home in Toronto now costs $390,000.

Ottowa
The average price of the homes sold in April was $276,440, an increase of 5.9 per cent over April 2006.

Montreal
The average price of a family home rose to $335,000 an increase of 4% over the year. “The volume of transactions since the beginning of the year is exceptional,” says Michel Beauséjour, Chief Executive Officer at the Greater Montréal Real Estate Board. “Economic indicators continue to point in the right direction. Among others, sustained job growth during the first quarter bodes well for the resale market during upcoming months.” he said.

9 May 2007