In sum, as the findings outlined in this section indicate that immigrant care workers play an important role in the healthcare sector for elderly. Many choose this sector because of the ease with which jobs can be secured and it enables those with previous health care training to continue to work in the health sector. As indicated above, Canadian employers in the LTC and homecare sectors rely heavily on immigrant care workers largely due to labour shortages in this sector due to the lack of availability of Canadian-born workers’ and their interest in securing better paid jobs.

The continual influx of immigrants into Canada who decide to leave their home countries for a variety of reasons can be viewed as a solution to the labour shortage in this sector. This may be why we found that neither employment nor recruitment agencies play a significant role in the process of migration and employment of immigrant care workers in this sector. Because employers find the employment agencies costly and detrimental to the continuity of care, they tend to heavily rely on word of mouth. In addition, as recruitment agencies are too expensive for many immigrant care workers, they opt to use informal networks in their search for jobs.

Consequently, care workers of the same ethnic origin often work in the same places. Indeed, our findings indicate a preference on the employer’s part to hire the immigrant workers of certain origins which often stems from their belief that some ethnic groups are more committed to the job than others. This may result in discriminatory practices with regard to the process of hiring workers in this sector. We turn to issues of workplace relations in the following section.