Does Canada's Express Entry System Meet the Challenges of the Labor Market?

While most immigrant-receiving countries have restricted immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has taken a very different approach, increasing its immigration targets over the next three years. With this move, Canada has made it clear that immigrants are expected to play a lead role in the post-pandemic economic recovery. Most of these immigrants will be admitted through Express Entry, a hybrid system introduced in 2015 that combines elements of both supply- and demand-driven selection. In this article, we examine whether Canada's hybrid selection system meets its current and future labor market needs in a post-pandemic world. Using a mixed methods approach, we combine analysis of an administrative dataset with data from qualitative interviews with employers and experts in the immigration sector. We find that while Express Entry is a flexible and responsive tool for selecting immigrants, it narrows the occupational profiles of newcomers. The system also does not fully address the labor shortages and skills gaps described by Canadian employers. We argue that Canada's post-pandemic labor market will require a wider range of skills, and that Express Entry's adaptability should be carefully monitored and adjusted to broaden the skill mix of immigrants and facilitate skills match between immigrants and employers.

New Canadians Working amid a New Normal: Recent Immigrant Wage Penalties in Canada during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed and arguably intensified many existing inequalities. This analysis explores the relationship between recent immigrant earnings and the pandemic. Specifically, we attempt to empirically answer the question "Has the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated (or mitigated) recent immigrant-non-immigrant employment and wage gaps?" We find that the pandemic did not change the labour force activity profile of recent or long-term immigrants. Moreover, the pandemic did not disproportionately disadvantage recent immigrants' earnings. In fact, recent immigrant men who were employed during the COVID-19 crisis experienced a small but statistically significant earnings premium. This was insufficient, however, to overcome the overall earnings discount associated with being a recent immigrant. In addition, we find that the recent immigrant COVID-19 earnings boost is observable only at and below the median of the earnings distribution. We also use Heckman selection correction to attempt to adjust for unobserved sample selection into employment during the pandemic. The fact that COVID-19 has not worsened recent immigrant earnings gaps should not overshadow the large, recent immigrant earnin disparities that existed before the pandemic and continue to exist regardless of the COVID-19 crisis.

Worldwide Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An International Survey.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Persons with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 either because of their underlying disease or its management. Guidance has been presented on the management of persons with IBD in the time of this pandemic by different groups. We aimed to determine how gastroenterologists around the world were approaching the management of IBD. METHODS: Members of the World Gastroenterology Organization (WGO) IBD Task Force contacted colleagues in countries largely beyond North America and Europe, inviting them to review the WGO website for IBD and COVID-19 introduction, with links to guideline documents, and then to respond to 9 ancillary open-ended management questions. RESULTS: Fifty-two gastroenterologists from 33 countries across 6 continents completed the survey (April 14 to May 16, 2020). They were all adhering for the most part to published guidelines on IBD management in the COVID-19 era. Some differences and reductions in services related to access, and some related to approach within their communities in terms of limiting virus spread. In particular, most gastroenterologists reduced in-person clinics (43 of 52), limited steroid use (47 of 51), limited elective endoscopy (45 of 52), and limited elective surgeries (48 of 51). If a patient was diagnosed with COVID-19, immunomodulatory therapy was mostly held. CONCLUSIONS: In most countries, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered the approach to persons with IBD. The few exceptions were mostly based on low burden of COVID-19 in individual communities. Regardless of resources or health care systems, gastroenterologists around the world took a similar approach to the management of IBD.

Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology (APAGE) Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Working Party guidelines on IBD management during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic, secondary to SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in high mortality and morbidity worldwide. As inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic disease, and most patients are on long-term immunosuppressive agents, there is understandable concern, particularly in terms of therapy. In view of this, experts in IBD across the Asia Pacific region were invited to put together recommendations based on their experience and the currently available data. In general, most IBD therapies (with a few exceptions) can be continued safely, and the general consensus is that maintaining disease control should remain the main principle of management. In addition, social distancing measures and the appropriate use of personal protective equipment should be strictly adhered to. During the current pandemic, face-to-face clinic follow ups and non-urgent procedures should be kept to a minimum.