聯邦政府應優先考慮擁有STEM資格和語言技能的移民

聯邦政府應優先考慮擁有STEM資格和語言技能的移民

作者：Jock Finlayson 和 Steven Globerman 2025年1月16日

Federal government should prioritize immigrants with STEM qualifications and language skills

Jock Finlayson and Steven Globerman  JANUARY 16, 2025

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/insights-to-guide-immigration-policy.pdf

過去一年，圍繞加拿大移民政策的方向和細節的爭議日益加劇。評論員、政界人士和學術分析人士關注的兩個基本問題：1）每年接納加拿大新移民的“適當”目標人數；2）選擇這些移民（包括永久移民和臨時移民）的篩選標準。篩選標準既包括移民項目的類型，例如臨時工、外國學生、省提名移民或永久居民，也包括每個項目下影響申請人篩選的具體因素，例如正規教育背景、語言能力、先前工作經驗、雇主擔保等等。

任何對理想移民數量的評估都必須麵對一個基本問題：目標的變化將如何影響加拿大現有永久居民和公民的長期生活水平？雖然移民政策可能還有其他目標，但它對現有加拿大居民福祉的影響顯然是一個關鍵考慮因素——而我們認為這一點尚未得到足夠的重視。

支持渥太華自2015年以來大幅增加移民的政策的傳統論點是，人口老齡化需要越來越多的新移民——既要“取代”退休工人，又要保持國家經濟增長。如果沒有更高的移民水平，經濟的“規模”可能會隨著時間的推移而萎縮，從而使政府缺乏稅收來資助各項計劃，削弱經濟活力，並阻礙未來整體繁榮的增長。這一觀點反映在今年早些時候前財政部長兼副總理克裏斯蒂亞·弗裏蘭（Chrystia Freeland）的講話中。她指出：“……加拿大可能是世界上最歡迎[新移民]的國家……這是巨大的經濟優勢，也是我國經濟增長的真正動力”（《國家郵報》工作人員，2024年）。

這一論點最明顯的問題在於，它忽略了一個現實：假設移民留在加拿大，任何一批移民最終都會老到退休。因此，如果移民是政策製定者為社會福利和其他項目提供資金的主要工具，他們將不得不立法連續增加新移民的數量，以資助前幾批移民的退休生活。這種做法最終將變得不可持續，因為後來的潛在移民群體會懷疑，未來支持他們退休所需的人口增長可能無法實現或不可行，從而使加拿大成為一個吸引力下降的移民目的地。

前部長弗裏蘭的觀點中一個更微妙的問題在於，將經濟規模等同於勞動力規模，隱含地假設勞動力規模的擴大會自動導致國內生產總值（GDP）的增加，進而導致稅基的擴大。然而，如果移民增加導致勞動生產率下降，則情況並非如此。畢竟，GDP是總工作時長和每工時實際產出的乘積。如果後者的下降幅度大於前者的增幅，在其他條件不變的情況下，GDP將會萎縮，稅基也將萎縮。文獻中的證據表明，低技能和低教育程度工人的移民會損害勞動生產率——例如，鼓勵雇主減緩采用節省勞動力的技術。一些經濟學家認為，自2015年以來，移民推動的強勁勞動力增長導致加拿大企業“看到的投資刺激機會比以往更少”（Robson和Bafale，2024：19）。勞動生產率是資本與勞動比率的正函數。通過增加移民大幅擴大低技能工人供應的政策可能會抑製勞動生產率的增長（Sargent，2024；Doyle 等人，2023），盡管它可能有助於解決某些行業的勞動力供應短缺和生產瓶頸問題。

即使移民增加不會對總體勞動生產率產生不利影響，GDP 增長也不一定意味著移民激增前居住在該國的人們的生活水平提高。在加拿大，近期移民數量（包括永久移民和臨時移民）接近創紀錄的增長與房價上漲有關（Wright，2024）。如果移民增加，而住房供應沒有同時相應增加，住房負擔能力也沒有提高，許多加拿大人可能會

Federal government should prioritize immigrants with STEM qualifications and language skills

By: Jock Finlayson and Steven Globerman  JANUARY 16, 2025

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/insights-to-guide-immigration-policy.pdf

The past year has seen growing controversy over the direction and details of Canada’s immigration policy. Commentators, political figures, and academic analysts have focused on two basic issues: 1) the “appropriate” annual target number of new immigrants admitted to Canada; and 2) the selection criteria for choosing these immigrants—both permanent and temporary. Selection criteria encompass both the type of immigration program, e.g., temporary workers, foreign students, provincial nominees, or permanent residents, as well as the specific attributes that influence applicant selection under each program—such as formal education, language proficiency, prior work experience, employer sponsorship, and so forth.

Any evaluation of the desired number of immigrants must confront a basic question: how will a change in the target affect the long-run standard of living of existing permanent residents and citizens of Canada? While immigration policy may have other objectives, its impact on the well-being of existing Canadian residents obviously is a key consideration—one that in our view has received insufficient attention.

The conventional argument in support of Ottawa’s policy to sharply ramp up immigration since 2015 is that an aging population requires an ever-larger number of newcomers—both to “replace” retiring workers and to keep the country’s economy growing. Absent higher levels of immigration, the “size” of the economy will presumably shrink over time, thereby depriving governments of tax revenue to fund programs, sapping economic dynamism, and hindering future gains in overall prosperity. This view is reflected in remarks by former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland earlier this year, when she observed that “…Canada is probably the country in the world that is most welcoming of [newcomers]…. That is a huge economic strength. It is a real driver of our country’s economic growth” (National Post Staff, 2024).

The most obvious problem with this argument is that it overlooks the reality that any cohort of immigrants will eventually also age into retirement, assuming they remain in Canada. It follows that if immigration is the main instrument policymakers rely on to fund social and other programs, they will be obliged to legislate serial increases in the number of newcomers in order to finance the retirements of preceding immigrant cohorts. This will become unsustainable at some point, as later cohorts of potential immigrants come to suspect that the future population growth required to support them in retirement might not materialize or be feasible, thus making Canada a less attractive immigration destination.

A more subtle problem with former Minister Freeland’s perspective is that equating the size of the economy to the size of its workforce implicitly assumes that a larger workforce automatically leads to a larger Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and, relatedly, to a larger tax base. However, this need not be true if increased immigration results in reduced labour productivity. After all, GDP is the product of total hours worked and real output per worker hour. If the latter decreases by more than the former increases, GDP will contract, as will the tax base, all other things constant. The evidence in the literature indicates that immigration of lower-skilled and less-educated workers hurts labour productivity—for example, by encouraging employers to slow the adoption of labour-saving technologies. Some economists have argued that strong immigration-fueled labour force growth since 2015 has caused Canadian businesses to “see fewer investment-spurring opportunities than they used to” (Robson and Bafale, 2024: 19). Labour productivity is a positive function of the capital-to-labour ratio. A policy to significantly expand the supply of lower-skilled workers via increased immigration is likely to dampen T INSIGHTS TO GUIDE IMMIGRATION POLICY BY JOCK FINLAYSON AND STEVEN GLOBERMAN © 2025 Fraser Institute fraserinstitute.org labour productivity growth (Sargent, 2024; Doyle et al., 2023), although it could help to address labour supply shortfalls and production bottlenecks in a few sectors.

Even if aggregate labour productivity is not adversely affected by increased immigration, it does not necessarily follow that a larger GDP equates to a higher standard of living for people resident in the country prior to the immigration surge. In Canada, recent near-record growth in the number of immigrants—permanent and temporary combined—has been linked to higher housing prices (Wright, 2024). Increased immigration, absent a contemporaneous and commensurate expansion of the housing supply and improved housing affordability, may leave many Canadians with less disposable income to spend on goods and services other than housing. It could force them to consume less “housing” than they otherwise would if housing were more affordable. This is not to argue that immigration alone drives housing prices—it is clear several other factors are also at play (Saiz, 2023).

The main inference to be drawn from the discussion so far is that growing the workforce through higher immigration does not necessarily make Canadians better off over their life cycles. This suggests the primary focus of a sensible immigration policy should be to attract newcomers who will increase the standard of living of people already resident in Canada, both over the course of their working lives and into retirement. This outcome is most likely if new immigrants contribute to higher average labour productivity across the economy. The empirical evidence is persuasive that highly educated immigrants, particularly those trained in STEMrelated subjects,1 are likely to 1) increase the productivity of existing residents, and 2) directly and indirectly contribute more to the tax base than they draw in government-funded public services and income transfers (Worswick, 2024). This pattern primarily reflects the disproportionate contribution that highly-educated immigrants make to innovation and entrepreneurship.2

Accordingly, our principal recommendation is that the Canadian government reinforce the role of the “points-based” system in selecting permanent immigrants and ensure the system assigns a high weight to prospective immigrants with STEM-related qualifications along with appropriate language skills (Finlayson and Globerman, 2023). There is also an argument for attracting more economic immigrants with skilled trades credentials. Generally, newcomers with STEM and skilled trades qualifications are most likely to raise average labour productivity and per-capita GDP over time.3

Federal and provincial policymakers should also consider why Canadian immigrants with STEM-related qualifications, while generally out-performing other immigrants in terms of employment earnings and incomes, under-perform American immigrants with similar qualifications (Statistics Canada, 2020). This finding suggests that policymakers should put a high priority on improving the business environment for entrepreneurship, innovation, and the growth of technology-intensive industries and occupations in Canada, in order to reap more benefits from skills-based economic immigration.

We further recommend reducing the number of “temporary” immigrants admitted to Canada under the various international student and temporary foreign worker programs—as the federal government has now started to do, albeit after allowing these programs to run essentially “out of control” over the last few years (Keller, 2024; Worswick, 2024). Since 2021, non-permanent immigrants have greatly outnumbered new permanent immigrants; in our view, it is time to move back to the pre-2020 balance between temporary and permanent newcomers. At the same time, we believe international student selection should be re-oriented to target students who enroll in and complete programs that lead to high-paying jobs and careers, rather than programs that graduate individuals who—if they stay in Canada—typically end up in low-productivity jobs in relatively low-paying industries (Keller, 2024).