New tool to help immigrants choose a city for immigration

Canada is testing an algorithm that advises immigrants on where they can be most successful.

According to research, most immigrants prefer to live in one of Canada's major cities. In fact, according to Statistics Canada, more than half of all Newcomers now live in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

However, these immigrants may have had more opportunities elsewhere. A filmmaker or a technician might have a great job in Toronto, but a petroleum engineer might not.

To help prospective immigrants choose a city, the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been working on a research project with the Immigration Policy Laboratory (IPL) at Stanford University since 2018. This project is called GeoMatch.

"The study found that potential immigrants who followed GeoMatch's recommendation were more likely to find well-paying jobs after moving," said IRCC spokesperson, Isabelle Dubois in an email.

Currently, Newcampers tend to tend to settle in the cities that are on everyone's radar — which tend to be the biggest ones. A new tool could help make a difference, broadening the geographic scope and helping immigrants consider different communities across Canada, beyond major urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver, for living.

According to the website, GeoMatch uses machine learning capabilities to make its predictions. It takes into account factors such as immigrants' employment history, education, and personal characteristics. It then finds patterns in the data, focusing on how those factors were related to economic success in different locations.

GeoMatch will then be able to predict the likelihood of immigrant success in different locations in Canada.

"Research shows that an immigrant's initial arrival location plays a key role in shaping their economic success. However, immigrants currently lack access to personalized information that would help them identify optimal destinations," says a report published by IPL.

The report reiterates that this approach is based on data that shows that an immigrant's first place of settlement affects his or her future outcomes.

"We found that for many economic immigrants, the first location chosen is far from optimal in terms of expected income," the report said.

It also notes that many immigrants choose Toronto simply because it is all they know about Canada, but the result of that choice can be the fact that one is "in the wrong place" for their skills. For example, Toronto ranks 20th out of 52 regions in terms of maximizing income per year after immigration. This means that for many immigrants, there are 19 other regions where they would probably have earned a higher income.