Skilled Japanese immigrants in Vancouver: Employment hardships and settlement experiences

Skilled immigrants in Canada face barriers in finding jobs, despite having high educational background and professional experiences from their home countries. They suffer deskilling and unemployment due to gendered and racialized institutional processes embedded in state policies and employment practices. Skilled Japanese immigrants in Vancouver are no exception, but there is hardly any research focusing on the settlement experiences of skilled Japanese immigrants in Vancouver. This qualitative research explores the ‘push and pull’ factors that influence their migration and investigate the employment issues that affect their settlement experiences through in-depth semi-structured interviews. My findings reveal that Japanese skilled people immigrate to Canada for lifestyle reasons. They left Japan to escape harsh working conditions and gender marginalization and seek work-life balance and a more relaxed lifestyle in Vancouver.