Who Drives a Taxi in Canada?

Li Xu
Research and Evaluation
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
March 2012

This document uses 2006 Census data to examine the participation of immigrants and the Canadian born in the taxi driving occupation. Specifically, it asks to what extent highly educated immigrants are employed in this occupation and how this compares to their Canadian-born counterparts. The document also draws a general portrait of taxi drivers in Canada and for eight major CMAs in terms of their immigration status, landing period, country of birth, educational attainment, field of study, and location of study.

The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Citizenship and Immigration Canada or the Government of Canada.

Who Drives a Taxi in Canada? [ PDF, size: 355 KB ] (PDF, 359.05KB)

Table of contents

• Executive summary
• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 Data, scope and definition of the analysis
• 2. National picture
  • 2.1. Half of the taxi drivers in Canada are immigrants
  • 2.2. More than one third of immigrant taxi drivers were born in India and Pakistan
  • 2.3. Highly-educated immigrants account for a sizable portion of immigrant taxi drivers
• 3. Postsecondary-educated taxi drivers
  • 3.1. Country of highest educational attainment
  • 3.2. Field of study
• 4. CMA profile

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• 1 (current)
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