December 2020

Burnaby Demographics

62.4% of Burnaby's 16,065 recent immigrants

arrived under the economic class, similar to Metro Vancouver’s regional levels (63%).
Source: 2016 Census

In 2016 56.4% of recent immigrants

aged 25 to 64 had a bachelor's degree or higher, up from 54.9% in 2011.
Source: 2016 Census

In 2016 Immigrants represented

50% of Burnaby's total population - that's 115,145 people.
Source: 2016 Census

63.6% Burnaby’s residents

self-identified as visible minorities.
Source: 2016 Census

8.7% of Burnaby's recent immigrants

are refugees.
Source: 2016 Census

54% of Burnaby's labour force

are immigrants.
Source: 2016 Census

15.7% of Burnaby’s recent immigrants

spoke non-official languages at work.
Source: 2016 Census

In 2015 35.6% of the recent

immigration population age 15 and over were in the low income bracket, down from 41.8% in 2010.
Source: 2016 Census

26.2% of Burnaby’s recent immigrants

worked in the retail trade, and the accommodation and food services sectors in 2015.
Source: 2016 Census

Burnaby was home to the fourth-largest

immigrant population (115,145) in the Metro Vancouver Region, representing 11.6% of Metro Vancouver’s immigrant population.
Source: 2016 Census

10% of Burnaby’s recent immigrants

were unemployed in 2015, significantly higher than their Canadian born counterparts (6.5%).
Source: 2016 Census

39.8% of Burnaby’s total population

spoke English only as their mother tongue, notably lower (14%) than Metro Vancouver’s regional level of 54.0%.
Source: 2016 Census

66.6% of Burnaby's recent immigrants

spoke non-official languages most often at home in 2016, notably more than 62.1% of Metro Vancouver’s recent immigrants.
Source: 2016 Census

66.0% of Burnaby’s recent immigrants

were between the ages of 15 and 44 when arriving Canada.
Source: 2016 Census

30.5% of Burnaby’s recent immigrants

spoke Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese and Chinese n.o.s. combined) most often at home.
Source: 2016 Census

44.4% Of Burnaby's recent

immigration population came from China and the Philippines.
Source: 2016 Census

232,080 residents

lived in Burnaby in 2015.
Source: 2016 Census

See Report...

Canada must reorient its immigration system for the 21st-century economy

December 30, 2020

By Globe and Mail | A mass exodus has commenced in Silicon Valley. Last month alone, Oracle Corporation, Tesla Inc., Charles Schwab Corporation, SpaceX and Hewlett-Packard Company announced relocation plans. Amid the pandemic, companies and their employees realized that remote work offered an opportunity to improve their competitiveness and quality of life elsewhere. But they are not coming to Canada. Instead, they are moving to jurisdictions that actively recruited their...

To cut through COVID-19 disinformation, Ottawa urged to make sure vaccination info also reaches newcomers

December 25, 2020

By the Star | The misinformation tends to go like this: “A vaccine will change your DNA.” Or … “COVID-19 vaccination is a scheme Bill Gates cooked up to insert microchips into our body.”...

Five surprising things we’ve learned about migration during the pandemic

December 25, 2020

By Vancouver Sun | Things that do not fit well together: A novel coronavirus and the free trans-national movement of humans....

Syrian family embraces surprise Christmas tree as symbol of their new home

December 24, 2020

By Saanich News | Sixteen-year-old Reem Al Ibrahim sounded practically giddy when asked about the snow that fell in Sidney on Monday. “I love the snow,” she said. “I hope we still have more snow to build a snowman.”...

Seeking a better life, Syrian refugees find success living in Saskatoon

December 23, 2020

By Global News | It’s been five years since Syrian refugees first arrived in Canada. Over 1,000 Syrian refugees have moved to Saskatoon since then....

Black, minority women in Canada left behind in COVID-19 job recovery

December 18, 2020

By Reuters | Nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic, women of color in Canada still face far higher unemployment than white women, official data shows, in part because they tend to work jobs in hard-hit sectors and often care for children or relatives....