Canada is the G7 country with a higher proportion of college or university graduates, a situation made possible in part by immigrants, although their talents have yet to be realized, according to Statistics Canada.

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According to the 2021 Census, 57.4% of Canadian adults ages 25 to 64 have a college or university education, ahead of the United States (50.3%) and the United Kingdom (50.1%).

This result would be largely due to the strength of Canada’s college sector, with nearly one in four working-age people holding a college certificate or diploma.

Another key factor is that the number of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher among the Canadian workforce increased by 19.1% from 2016 to 2021. Health sectors (+24.1%) and computer and information sciences (+46.3%) recorded the largest increases.

Conversely, the number of Canadians with apprenticeship degrees in mechanical and repair engineering (-7.8%) and precision engineering (-10%) fell, while their number in construction (+0.6%) stagnated. In particular, this result would explain the number of vacancies in these areas in 2022.

The diplomas of underexploited immigrants

Almost half of the increase in the proportion of Canadians with a bachelor’s degree or higher is due to recent immigrants, according to Statistics Canada, but more than a quarter of them are in jobs that only require a bachelor’s degree.

Areas where labor shortages are particularly acute, such as Health care, for example, would suffer the effects. For example, only 36.5% of immigrants with a bachelor’s degree or higher in nursing were eligible to work in the field, while as doctors, 41.1% are.