A new Statistics Canada study shows that immigrant-owned business created a “disproportionate share of new job creation” from 2003 to 2013, in comparison to businesses with Canadian-born owners.
Immigrant-owned businesses were responsible for 25 percent of net jobs created, during the 11 year period, while making up 17 percent of all business studied.
This translated to 400,000 net new jobs from 2003 to 2013, higher than Canadian-owned businesses.
Immigrant-owned businesses were shown to be 1.3 times more likely to become high-growth firms, with annual employment growth shown to exceed 20% more than Canadian-owned businesses.
A majority of immigrant-owned businesses were less than four years old, which according to Statistics Canada, is an important factor.
“In any given year, young firms … were much more likely to increase employment than to shed employment,” the report says. “Young firms accounted for 40.5 percent of gross job creation, but only 17 percent of gross job losses.”
Statistics Canada adds that younger firms are more dynamic when it comes to job creation, due to their high rates of growth than older firms.