Immigrants to Canada tend to make less in the workforce and were more likely to report that their part-time work was involuntary than Canadian-born workers, according to the latest study from Statistics Canada.

However, the survey of labour force conditions from 2008 does offer some hope to new Canadians, as the quality of employment for immigrants who landed in Canada more than 10 years ago tended to more closely resemble those of Canadian-born workers. Nevertheless, some disparities still exist for workers after living here for more than a decade.

Compared with their Canadian-born counterparts, employed immigrants aged 25 to 54 are younger, more likely to be male, have higher levels of post-secondary education and tend to work in smaller firms, the study found.

The average hourly wage of an immigrant worker in 2008 was $21.44, $2.28 less than the $23.72 Canadian-born employees earn.

The gap exists regardless of when the immigrant landed, the study found, though immigrants who landed within the previous five years had the largest wage gap, earning $5.04 less than Canadian-born employees.

The wage gap was also about $5 an hour when comparing immigrant and Canadian-born workers who both have university degrees.

Over-qualified workers

"Over-qualification was particularly prevalent among university-educated immigrants who landed within five years before the survey," the study found. "Two-thirds worked in occupations that usually required at most a college education or apprenticeship."

A Statistics Canada study published last year said a number of factors contributed to the difficulty in finding appropriate work among university-educated immigrants, including language barriers, age bias, credentials that are not recognized in Canada and discrimination against visible minorities.

Immigrant workers working part-time or temporary jobs were also more likely to consider themselves underemployed, with 38 per cent reporting their part-time or temporary work as involuntary, compared with 30 per cent for Canadian-born workers.

Immigrants also logged slightly longer hours, working 38.3 hours compared with 38.1 for Canadian-born workers. But immigrants were less likely to work either paid or unpaid overtime compared with the Canadian born, regardless of period of landing.