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Windsor’s new immigrants rank among the lowest income earners across the nation and have the highest unemployment rate of those with university education or degrees, according to a quality of life report on immigration in Canada’s cities released Thursday.
The report studied social and economic conditions in 24 cities for newcomers between 2001 and 2006.
While Windsor was comparatively average in terms of affordable housing and lower cost of living for immigrants, finding jobs — especially among those with top qualifications — has been a major struggle locally, said the study authored by Michel Frojmovic and released by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

He said the unemployment rate for new immigrants with university degrees or certificates in Windsor is tops in the country at just under 20 per cent.
Finding jobs is the biggest problem locally for new immigrants — far too often those with higher education, agreed Padmini Raju, executive director of Windsor Women Working With Immigrant Women.
More education is needed for local employers to better understand the skills immigrants bring from their homelands, she said.
“There have been some programs and some recognition in terms of qualifications, but not enough,” Raju said.
Immigrants’ first goal upon arriving in Windsor is to pursue employment. With job opportunities so limited, they often jump at jobs far below their qualifications, she said.
Hiral Batel, 25, who came to Windsor seven months ago from India to be with her husband, who has a pharmacy job in Michigan, is stunned at how hard it is to find a suitable job in Canada.
She worked as mechanical engineer for five years at a manufacturing company in India that made industrial gearboxes.
In Windsor, she is working part-time as a gas station cashier, earning $8.75 per hour.
Batel has applied to more than local 20 companies for a job in her field.
“I keep trying,” she said Thursday. “They tell me ‘there is a slowdown. If we get another project we will call you then.’”
She is taking a software design course at St. Clair College and is getting support from Raju’s immigrant help agency.
“Sometimes I become depressed or angry,” Batel said. “I didn’t expect it to be this difficult in Canada. I don’t know how to live in Windsor. Maybe we are going to move.”
Mary Ellen Bernard, project manager for local immigration partnership in the city’s social services department, said immigrants are now avoiding coming to Windsor because of its 12.6 unemployment rate — highest in the nation.
“One of the reasons we’ve been an appealing location in the past is our housing market in the sense of affordability, but with unemployment so high, it certainly has affected those who come,” she said.
Bernard is helping lead a federal pilot project funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada — the nation’s first — that will develop a strategic plan for newcomers to Windsor and Essex County. The project started in November and city officials are still collecting data that will help form the backbone for the project, she said.
It will cover everything from housing, language, employment and financial issues to help better integrate newcomers into the local community, Bernard said.
“These are issues we need to be working on with more sense of urgency,” she said.
Frojmovic’s report paints a picture of immigrants struggling to catch up with other Canadians and cash-strapped cities unable to cope as immigrants show up after receiving a federal green light to enter the country.
Many Canadian cities will soon face a labour shortage and that’s why the feds continue to support an influx of immigrants, he said.
Immigrants are twice as likely to have post-secondary education or degrees than non-immigrants, yet the unemployment rate for that group is up to four times higher, he said.
A disproportionate amount of new immigrants is stuck in low income jobs and are more reliant on rental housing, he concluded.
His study also showed Windsor was the only city in Canada with non-immigrants in sales and service jobs outnumbering immigrants.
Dispelling a widespread myth, the proportion of immigrants who came to Canada within the five-year study that are receiving social assistance is much lower than non-immigrants at less than 10 per cent.
In Windsor, out of 8,500 social assistance cases, only 650 are new immigrants, Bernard said.
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