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Aligning Immigration With Canada’s Labour Market

The Immigration–Labour Alignment Tracker

Français   •   September 15, 2026

Aligning immigration with need

Canada’s prosperity depends on a strong, productive economy supported by a coordinated labour strategy: one that strengthens domestic talent while using immigration strategically to help meet evolving labour market needs.

Canada’s immigration selection mechanisms play a key role in helping to align the skills and talent of immigrants with workforce need. However, without assessing the selection of immigrants against where the need is, we cannot determine how effectively Canada is addressing labour market demand through immigration.

We developed this tool to address that gap. The Immigration–Labour Alignment Tracker connects the dots between immigration selection and labour market need through a unique alignment rate. The alignment rate benchmarks immigrant arrivals against recent vacancy patterns, measuring how admissions align with job vacancies by occupation and region.

The tracker adds industry-level data from Vicinity Jobs 2026 to provide further explanation as to where demand for an occupation may be concentrated.1

Highlights from the Tracker—September 2026

Chemical engineers, biological technologists among highest alignment nationally

Among the occupations in the 2026 analysis, chemical engineers as well as supervisors, general office and administrative support workers are the two occupations most closely aligned with vacancies. At the other end of the spectrum, general practitioners and family physicians as well as dentists are the two occupations least aligned with vacancies.

The top 10 occupations with the strongest alignment between immigrant admissions and past job vacancies are as follows:

  1. Chemical engineers (0.98 per vacancy)
  2. Supervisors, general office and administrative support workers (1.04 per vacancy)
  3. Biological technologists and technicians (1.05 per vacancy)
  4. Information systems testing technicians (0.94 per vacancy)
  5. Retail sales supervisors (0.93 per vacancy)
  6. Translators, terminologists and interpreters (0.92 per vacancy)
  7. Web designers and developers (1.12 per vacancy)
  8. Supervisors, motor transport and other ground transit operators (0.88 per vacancy)
  9. Customer and information services supervisors (0.82 per vacancy)
  10. User support technicians (0.81 per vacancy)

The 10 occupations with the weakest alignment are as follows:

  1. General practitioners and family physicians (8.94 per vacancy)
  2. Dentists (6.77 per vacancy)
  3. Probation and parole officers and related occupations (0 per vacancy)
  4. Landscaping and grounds maintenance labourers (0 per vacancy)
  5. Family, marriage and other related counsellors (0 per vacancy)
  6. Program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness (0 per vacancy)
  7. Couriers, messengers and door-to-door distributors (0 per vacancy)
  8. Court officers and justices of the peace (0 per vacancy)
  9. Operators and attendants in amusement, recreation and sport (0 per vacancy)
  10. Dental assistants (0 per vacancy)

Among occupations with an alignment rate of 0 per vacancy, occupations with the highest average job vacancy counts were prioritized for inclusion in the top 10.

For occupations such as general practitioners and family physicians and dentists, vacancy postings may not fully capture labour demand because many workers enter these occupations by opening or joining a practice rather than responding to formally posted vacancies. As a result, low alignment rates for these occupations may partly reflect limitations in the vacancy data rather than a complete lack of labour market demand.

Occupational alignment varies across provinces and territories

In many instances, alignment rates for the same occupation vary across provinces and territories. These differences reflect federal selection criteria but also provincial and territorial nominations. For example, some provinces/territories rely more heavily on employer driven streams, including those tied to job offers, which means that admissions are closely tied to vacancies. The tracker captures both types of selection and should be used to compare alignment patterns across occupations and regions rather than to fully attribute differences to provincial and territorial nominations.

In Nova Scotia, for example, the alignment rate for nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates is 0.58 per vacancy. In Quebec, the same occupation had just 0.09 admissions per vacancy.

Nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates are CBS‑priority occupations and show strong national alignment, with 0.34 admissions per vacancy. When observed further at a provincial level, Ontario has fair alignment, with 0.51 admissions per vacancy. Ontario’s alignment is also lower than other provinces—New Brunswick, for instance, has 1.39 admissions per vacancy.

Without further investigation into selection practices for each jurisdiction, we cannot determine why this is or to what extent this result is influenced by policy levers such as Category-Based Selection (CBS) or the Provincial Nominee Program selection, for example. However, these variations provide a signal for policy-makers—at both the federal and provincial level—to investigate selection practices for regions and sectors where the alignment rate varies.

Priority occupations with low alignment need to be closely monitored

Applying the CBS filter reveals surprising results in occupations where we would expect high alignment.

For example, plumbers are a CBS-priority occupation, but they experience a low alignment rate at just 0.03 per vacancy. In real terms, just 90 immigrants intending to work as plumbers were admitted in 2025 against 2,897 average vacancies in 2023–24.

In comparison, the web designers and developers category is not a CBS-priority occupation and shows high alignment—at 1.12 admissions per vacancy—along with high vacancy pressure. In real terms, 875 immigrants intending to work in this occupation were admitted in 2025 against 789 vacancies in 2023–24.

What the industry data tells us

The industry layer helps indicate which sectors are most exposed to (mis)alignment in each occupation by showing where demand is concentrated. For example, postings for civil engineers are concentrated in the professional, scientific and technical services sector. The tracker shows that 0.32 civil engineers were admitted for every vacancy, indicating a relatively low alignment rate. If domestic labour supply is also limited, this gap may be felt most strongly in the sectors that rely most on the professional, scientific and technical services sector rather than evenly across the economy.

Next steps

Federal and provincial policy-makers can use provincial differences to target region-specific solutions. Investigate occupations where alignment varies across provinces and territories, and assess whether region-specific selection tools or policies would improve outcomes.

Federal policy-makers can refine Category-Based Selection priorities using alignment signals. Review CBS-priority occupations that continue to show low alignment, and use this evidence to adjust category focus, either by increasing emphasis on certain occupations or reconsidering their inclusion in future selection cycles.

Employers and regulators can coordinate sector responses where alignment gaps are industry concentrated. Identify occupations where low alignment is concentrated in a small number of industries, and work with sector stakeholders to determine whether targeted selection or domestic workforce strategies could be effective responses.

Government and data providers can improve post-arrival outcomes data to separate selection alignment from integration barriers. The current data does not show whether immigrants actually work in their intended occupation or are unemployed or underemployed. Linking admissions to post-arrival employment outcomes by intended occupation and province/region would help policy-makers determine whether gaps reflect selection choices or barriers to labour market integration, such as licensing and credential challenges.

  1. Vicinity Jobs Data 2026 compiles online job postings from employer websites and job boards. It is used in the tracker to identify the top three hiring industries for each occupation. Data covers postings collected between January 1 and December 31, 2025.

This research was prepared with financial support from the Centre for Canadian Growth and Prosperity. For more information, see the Centre’s webpage.

A special thank you to World Education Services for their thought leadership which, alongside their financial support, was instrumental in bringing this research to life.

Many colleagues contributed to this work. Lauren Hamman, (former) Associate Director, MPPGA, provided oversight throughout the research process. Jacob LeBlanc, Senior Research Associate, MA; Ryan Sikiric, Lead Research Associate, MA; and Stein Monteiro, Lead Research Associate, PhD, executed the research. Stefan Fournier, Executive Director, MA, provided feedback on later drafts. Mallory Eliosoff designed this product.

We also wish to thank the following external reviewers:

  • Pedro Malm Green, Policy & Advocacy Manager, World Education Services
  • Kemi Medu, Director, Labour Market Intelligence, Policy Branch, Immigration and Career Training, Government of Saskatchewan
  • Sarah Kastner, Senior Director, World Education Services

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How does Canada select immigrants for labour needs?

Canada selects economic immigrants primarily through Express Entry. Express Entry uses a points-based system that rewards human capital factors such as age, level of education, and official language proficiency.

Express Entry also includes targeted pathways that prioritize applicants with skills in areas of labour market need. For example, the Federal Skilled Trades Program selects skilled workers based on their experience and qualifications in a skilled trade.

Category-Based Selection (CBS) is another mechanism in Express Entry. This framework targets candidates for selection who meet the skills and training required in one of six categories: health care, trades, transport, agriculture, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) or French-language proficiency. Not all Express Entry draws are based on CBS priorities. For example, between January and December 2025, there were 58 Express Entry rounds resulting in 113,998 invitations to apply. Of these, 18 rounds included one of the six CBS priorities, resulting in 67,250 invitations to apply (or 59 per cent).1

To address regional labour needs, Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs) allow provinces to align selection preferences with specific labour needs. Almost all PNPs have specific streams designed around filling local economic needs, including, for example, the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program Employer Job Offer stream2 or British Columbia’s Provincial Nominee Program Health Authority stream.3

What is a low or high alignment rate?

We interpret the alignment rate by looking at how closely immigrant arrivals match the number of vacancies in a given occupation. An alignment rate of 1.0 means arrivals and vacancies are equal. The further the rate is from 1.0 (whether lower or higher), the lower the alignment.

For example, an occupation with 0.05 arrivals per vacancy and 5.0 arrivals per vacancy would both be considered poorly aligned, because in both cases the number of arrivals is far from the number of vacancies.

By contrast, occupations with alignment rates close to 1.0 are more closely aligned with measured labour demand. For example, an occupation with 0.99 arrivals per vacancy or 1.01 arrivals per vacancy would both be considered highly aligned. See “Methodology” for more detail.

Interpreting the alignment rate

The alignment rate compares the number of immigrant arrivals in an occupation with the number of recent full-time job vacancies in that same occupation and region. We use average vacancies from 2023 and 2024 to create a more stable benchmark, smoothing out year-to-year fluctuations.

An alignment rate of 0.10 per vacancy means that immigrant arrivals were much lower than recent job demand for that occupation and geography. An alignment rate of 1.0 per vacancy means arrivals were about the same size as the recent vacancy benchmark. An alignment rate above 1.0 means there were more immigrant arrivals than recent vacancies in that field.

This measure is meant to show how closely immigration selection appears to line up with recent labour market need. It does not show whether newcomers actually worked in that occupation, whether they had the exact credentials employers needed, or whether they filled those jobs right away. It also does not include domestic labour supply, such as people trained in Canada.

To keep comparisons reliable, we only report occupations with at least 100 average vacancies. Where data is missing, suppressed, or too limited to report, the dashboard shows – or * instead of an alignment rate.

How to use the Immigration–Labour Alignment Tracker

The tracker can be used to view the alignment rate per occupation; to compare alignment rates across geographies and/or occupational groups; and to view the top three hiring categories for an occupation.

There are five filters that users can apply to the tracker:

  1. A filter by one-digit National Occupational Classification (NOC) code. These are broad occupational group categorizations such as “management occupations,” “health occupations,” etc.
  2. A filter by geography to select occupations by Canada, a province, or a territory.
  3. A filter for CBS-priority occupations.
  4. A table listing each occupation, its alignment rate, and the top three hiring industries associated with that occupation. The industry information shows whether demand is concentrated in a few industries or spread more broadly across the economy.
  5. A bar chart showing vacancies compared with immigrant arrivals for each occupation.

To view the alignment rate for a single occupation, use the one-digit NOC code filter to find the occupation and the table to view the occupation. Use the geography filters to view the same occupation in different regions; the alignment rate will change, as it is specific to the immigrant arrivals and labour market vacancies in each jurisdiction.

The bar chart displays all occupations for the selected geography and NOC group. Two series are shown in the legend: one representing vacancies per occupation and one representing immigrant arrivals by intended occupation.

To view the alignment rate for a province or territory, use the provincial filter to switch geography. To compare alignment rates across provinces and territories, use this function while keeping all other filters constant.

Large variations in the alignment rate for the same occupation in different provinces can suggest that alignment is region specific and not uniform across Canada.

Looking within a single province and consistently noting low alignment across different occupations can be an indication to look more closely at region-specific selection policies.

To focus on occupations that are included in CBS categories, use the CBS filter to isolate CBS-priority occupations. This view is useful for understanding how alignment differs between CBS-priority and non‑CBS occupations and for identifying where alignment gaps persist within CBS priorities.

Because CBS categories are designed using labour market evidence and consultation, higher alignment among CBS‑priority occupations is generally expected.

The tracker can show which CBS‑priority occupations have relatively low alignment, whether alignment for a CBS occupation varies significantly across provinces and territories, and whether some non‑CBS occupations show persistently low alignment.

The Immigration–Labour Alignment Tracker

  1. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, “Express Entry: Rounds of invitations.”
  2. Government of Ontario, “OINP Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker stream.”
  3. Government of British Columbia, “The BC Provincial Nominee Program.”

This research was prepared with financial support from the Centre for Canadian Growth and Prosperity. For more information, see the Centre’s webpage.

A special thank you to World Education Services for their thought leadership which, alongside their financial support, was instrumental in bringing this research to life.

Many colleagues helped to bring this research to life. Lauren Hamman, (former) Associate Director, MPPGA, provided oversight throughout the research process. Jacob LeBlanc, Senior Research Associate, MA; Ryan Sikiric, Lead Research Associate, MA; and Stein Monteiro, Lead Research Associate, PhD, executed the research. Stefan Fournier, Executive Director, MA, provided feedback on later drafts. Mallory Eliosoff designed this product.

We also wish to thank the following external reviewers:

  • Pedro Malm Green, Policy & Advocacy Manager, World Education Services
  • Kemi Medu, Director, Labour Market Intelligence, Policy Branch, Immigration and Career Training, Government of Saskatchewan
  • Sarah Kastner, Senior Director, World Education Services

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