OTTAWA -- Employment among immigrants increased 2.1 per cent in 2007 but the employment-rate gap between immigrants and those born in Canada widened.
Employment among core working-age immigrants -- aged 25 to 54 -- rose by 52,000 over 2006.
Employment among Canadian-born workers grew at a rate of 1.3 per cent last year.
However, Statistics Canada reports the employment-rate gap between immigrants and the Canadian born widened because the immigrant population grew much faster than their employment.
While the immigrant employment rate edged up 0.2 percentage points to 77.9 per cent, the employment rate for the Canadian born rose by 0.7 percentage points to 83.8 per cent.
The employment-rate gap between immigrants and the Canadian born widened to 5.9 percentage points in 2007 from 5.4 in 2006.
The unemployment rate among core working-age immigrants edged up to 6.6 per cent from 6.5 -- higher than the 4.6 per cent rate among Canadian-born.
The agency reports employment for immigrants aged 25 to 54 reached nearly 2.5 million, with full-time employment increasing three per cent.
More than half the of growth in employment among core working-age immigrants last year occurred in Quebec, where it was up 28,000 over 2006.
Employment for immigrant women aged 25 to 54 increased by 47,000, accounting for the vast majority of the estimated 52,000 gain for core working-age immigrants.
Almost all of the employment growth for immigrants in 2007 occurred among established immigrants, namely those who had been in Canada for more than 10 years.
--The Canadian Press
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