Beyond “Economic Immigration”: Understanding the Role of Labor Market and Lifestyle Expectations in Technology Sector Newcomer Experiences in Canada

Canada has long sought to disperse skilled immigration across the country, with the goal of promoting economic development, improving cultural diversity, and mitigating population decline. The Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs) are one mechanism for achieving regionalized immigration: they allow Canadian provinces and territories to use labor market information (LMI) to identify in-demand skills and offer visas to newcomers who match local needs. However, even when LMI is accurate, many factors can prevent newcomer access to local labor markets, particularly in third-tier cities (populations of 100,000 to 500,000), including credential recognition, discrimination, and a lack of settlement infrastructure. This paper centers the stories of three newcomers to Canada, each with senior technology sector experience and arriving through PNPs into third-tier cities. Amidst well-established themes in settlement narratives, such as housing affordability, family, lifestyle, and the role of Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPs), this paper suggests that newcomers arriving under programs such as the PNPs may experience LMI congruence or incongruence: the degree to which expectations of a labor market (shaped by being selected for immigration based on particular in-demand skills) match or do not match newcomers’ real experiences of labor market access. Policymakers and institutions that use LMI to guide decisions may consider two lessons from the narratives offered in this study: one, the continued importance of reducing barriers to labor market entry for newcomers, and two, the possibility that LMI congruence and accurate expectations play a role in retention.