Interactive dashboard helps assess COVID-19 impact on immigrant workers

CERC Migration's Data and Methods Lab designed this dashboard to help researchers segment the immigrant worker population to analyze how various groups are being impacted by COVID-19 relative to Canadian-born workers. 

This dashboard makes explicit the compounding of disadvantage among immigrant subgroups. Here are some top insights we’ve uncovered: 

• At the start of the pandemic, the gap in employment between immigrant and Canadian-born workers was only about 1%. By May 2020, this gap increased. Immigrant workers were 4% more likely to be unemployed than Canadian-born. This gap remained consistent through June 2020 as well, even though unemployment decreased overall for both immigrant and Canadian-born workers.
• Throughout the pandemic, immigrant workers were about 4% less likely to work-from-home than their Canadian-born counterparts, and 8% more likely to have lost work in May 2020 of the pandemic. 
• These disadvantages could have dire consequences for vulnerable persons. For instance, immigrant single mothers with children at the start of the pandemic were 15% more likely to lose work than comparable Canadian-born workers. By May 2020, this group of immigrant workers were 34% more likely to have lost work, and 11% more likely to experience a major impact on their financial obligations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among those immigrant single mothers that experienced a major impact on their financial obligations, 56% required relief from their financial obligations but received none. 

Explore the interactive dashboard below.