Where doctors and engineers emigrate from has a big impact on whether they find work in their fields in Canada, according to a new Statistics Canada study.

Using numbers from the 2001 census, it found immigrants from Western Europe, China and India were more likely to practise medicine in Canada while foreign-trained engineers had better luck getting a job if they were accredited in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Underemployment in both professions was most notable for individuals coming from other Asian countries and Eastern Europe.

In 2001 there were 5,400 individuals living in Canada who had studied medicine at a foreign institution, but only 55 per cent were working as a medical doctor. About 33 per cent were in jobs completely unrelated to the medical field.

There were also 34,100 foreign-trained engineers, accounting for one-quarter of the trained engineers in the country. But only 26 per cent of them were working in their profession while 35 per cent found completely unrelated jobs.

Meanwhile, 92 per cent of Canadian-born doctors and 40 per cent of Canadian-born engineers find work despite foreigners having spent a longer amount of time on their education, adds Statistics Canada.

Arrival date had an impact

The chances of foreign-trained doctors and engineers finding work in their field in Canada depends largely on when they arrived, the study says.

Foreign-trained physicians or engineers who arrived in the early 1980s are more likely to be working in their professions than those who came in the early 1990s due to a slower economy, says the study. 

Level of education, fields of study, fluency in French or English, and proximity to Canada's largest urban centres were also determined to influence the ability of immigrants to obtain employment in their fields.

Foreign-born professionals were more likely to be living in urban centres with about 50 per cent residing in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. One-third of Canadian-born doctors live in those cities.