(Montreal) The employment rate among people from visible minorities in Quebec was higher than that of their Ontario neighbors in 2021. However, a gap remained with the rest of the Quebec population, as for average employment income .
This is revealed by a new study by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) looking at visible minorities and the labor market, published on Tuesday.
The employment rate among these people aged 25 to 64 was 73.6% in 2021, while that of the rest of the population of the same age was 76.9% in the Belle Province.
Divided into groups, the statistics indicate that black people had a higher employment rate (78.8%) than the rest of Quebecers. Among black men, it climbed to 81.2%, according to the ISQ.
“There have been improvements in the employment rate for black people. Even at the education level, whether secondary, post-secondary or university, it is a group that stands out by having rates quite close to those who are not visible minorities, “said the author of the study in an interview. , analyst Luc Cloutier-Villeneuve.
The Latin American and Arab populations had employment rates of 76.2% and 70.8% respectively. Among people of Chinese and South Asian origin, this proportion fell to around 67%.
In addition, non-immigrant visible minorities have an employment rate (78%) similar to that of the rest of the population, notes the ISQ.
The analysis indicates that the employment rate of visible minorities in Quebec fared better than that of Ontario (70.1%), but was similar to that of British Columbia (73.8%).
For some groups, the gap was even more pronounced between Quebec and Ontario. For example, Quebecers from Arab backgrounds had an employment rate about 13 percentage points higher than that of their fellow Ontarians.
The portrait of the ISQ did not examine the factors that could explain a better participation in the labor market of black people, or even Latin Americans and Arabs, in comparison with other minorities established in Quebec.
Mr. Cloutier-Villeneuve advances the hypothesis of fluency in French as a “favorable aspect”.
“Often people of Haitian or North African origin have French as their mother tongue, or they have Francothrope profiles. It is certain that it is an advantage to be able to work easily in Quebec,” he recalls.
Overall, all visible minority groups saw their employment rate gap narrow with that of the rest of the population between 2016 and 2021.
Mr. Cloutier-Villeneuve believes that better education for people from visible minorities may have played in favor of this improvement.
However, there remains a significant income gap, although an upturn has been observed by the ISQ.
In 2019, the average salary of people from visible minorities aged 25 to 64 was approximately $43,840. It was then about $56,350 among people who were not from visible minorities.
This is a difference of 22%, still down from 2015 when it was more like 28%. The ISQ used data from 2019 wanting to avoid taking into account the impacts of the pandemic.
The decrease was more marked among Arabs, namely by half, from a difference of 31% to 15%. Among black populations, the reduction was more minimal, the gap standing at almost 26%, compared to about 30% in 2015.
“So we see that there are groups that are doing a little better than others. The gaps remain, there are improvements in general. But there are still employment income issues,” summarizes Mr. Cloutier-Villeneuve.
The factors involved are multiple, specifies the analyst in labor statistics. It lists, among other things, educational choices or the fact of working and studying at the same time.
The literature also points to other factors such as recognition of diplomas, lack of work experience in the host country, knowledge of official languages, cultures that favor the presence of women more at home and discrimination, says Mr. Cloutier-Villeneuve.