A new study conducted by Statistics Canada from 2003 to 2013 found that businesses owned by immigrants tended to have higher growth, creating more jobs than their Canadian-born counterparts.
A complicating factor in the study may be that immigrants also typically own younger businesses, which tend to hire more than older firms do — just over 3/4 of immigrant-owned firms were less than 10 years old.
Still, immigrant-owned firms were also more likely to be high-growth ones, meaning employment growth in these firms exceeds 20% annually.
Immigrants tend to become business owners more often than Canadian-born citizens do; while they’re less likely to own businesses in their first few years in Canada, a greater percentage of newcomers end up as business owners after they have lived in Canada for a while.
The study concluded that immigration aids in the creation of new and dynamic businesses.