The IRCC (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada) reviewed the performance of the Atlantic Immigration Pilot recently. And it looks that the pilot has been successful in helping the eastern coastal provinces attract new immigrants.
The Atlantic Immigration Pilot was launched by Canada in 2017. It is an employer-driven program that was initiated by the government to fill vacancies in some of the essential occupations. It is managed by the federal government and the four Atlantic provinces of Canada, which are Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick.
The provinces in Atlantic Canada have always struggled to retain new immigrants in the area. However, as per an analysis done by the IRCC, it has come out that most of the respondents who moved to Atlantic Canada through the AIP are still living there.
Further, most of them were working for the same employers, and those who changed their jobs were working in the same province. So, this signifies that the Atlantic Immigration Program has a much higher retention rate as compared to the other economic immigration programs.
45 percent of the respondents surveyed were living in New Brunswick, 34 percent in Nova Scotia, and 10 percent each in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland & Labrador.
The immigrants’ retention rates for AIP were higher in Newfoundland & Labrador and New Brunswick. Most of the people questioned answered that they plan to stay in Atlantic Canada. This means that they do not have any plans to relocate to any other Canadian province as they are living a good life in the Atlantic provinces.
The majority of the respondents said that they liked the community and their job. In addition, they believe that the provinces in Atlantic Canada provide an affordable living standard.
The Atlantic Immigration Pilot will soon become a permanent immigration pathway. The program was extended till December 2021 by the IRCC so that it can analyze the long-term impact and utility of the program.
