Canada Nova Scotia province is planning a drastic increase in accepting new immigrants.
According to its new immigration strategy, the province plans to allow 7,200 new immigrants each year by the year 2020, double the current amount of 3,600.
The strategy includes marketing the province’s attraction abroad and helping employers seek out and hire professionals more easily.
The province also plans to lobby the federal government to increase the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), which allows provinces and territories to nominate immigrants, from the current 500 per year to 1,500 per year.
Part of the program also aims at retaining at least 70-percent of the immigrants moving into the province. At present, the retention rate is slightly lower, and has been falling as immigrants, and even locals, move out to other provinces, particularly to Ontario and Alberta.
To make it easier for immigrants, and also as a sign of the changing demographic patterns, the government’s new website on immigration, novascotiaimmigration.ca, has information in eight languages including German, Hindi, Mandarin and Spanish.
At present the province receives just two immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants, while the province of Ontario receives 11 per thousand.
But even though the province might not be multicultural as cities such Toronto, with its vast number of ethnic food, places of worship etc, Nova Scotia offers good opportunities. According to government data, there will be more than 60,000 new jobs in the province in the next five years due to emigration, decrease in the number of people entering the labour force and an increase in people leaving the workforce.
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