More immigrants than ever before settled in New Brunswick last year.
The latest figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada suggest that 5,660 new permanent residents moved to New Brunswick up to November 2019. The number is expected to grow once the data for December is included.
The 2019 11-month figure already marks a 23 per cent increase from 2018, when there were only 4,610 permanent resident landings in the province throughout the entire year.
The previous highest number of new permanent immigrants settling in the province was 4,675, set in 2016.
“I think it’s extremely good news for the province, considering we’re expecting 120,000 retirements in the next 10 years,” said Alex LeBlanc, the executive director of the New Brunswick Multicultural Council (NBMC).
“A growing percentage of [economic immigrants] are coming with job offers in hand or they’ve been temporary residents in New Brunswick and have found a pathway to permanence by getting a job,” LeBlanc said, pointing to international students and temporary workers who have been able to gain permanent status.
Nearly 85 per cent (4,795) of the permanent residents in 2019 are economic immigrants, while less than 1 percent (470) were refugees.
“I think we’re going to see a similar trend next year of just continuing growth,” LeBlanc continued “There are temporary workers, spouses of permit holders and international students out there who are also struggling to settle and get connected to housing and jobs here. We need to keep that in our minds as well and in our planning moving forward.”
Article published 4th February 2020