Working from (a New) Home: Tensions Faced by Remote Working Immigrants in Canada

Abstract

Remote work has become a prevalent work model in Canada but there is limited research on how immigrants experience this type of work. This paper shares thematic findings from an instrumental case study that explored such experiences in two of Canada’s largest immigrant-receiving provinces. We interviewed 21 highly educated remote workers from the Global South who had immigrated to Canada in the last 10 years. We generated three themes from a reflexive thematic analysis of interview transcripts. (1) Shifting labour market value: despite enhancing their skillsets, many participants still faced labour market devaluation, which led to feelings of insecurity. (2) Occupational flexibility: participants enjoyed the flexibility remote work provided but often could not draw distinct boundaries between work and home. (3) Socialization and belonging: being physically removed from the workplace affected participants’ connections with others within and outside of the workplace. Participants viewed hybrid work as a possible solution for achieving better balance. Using a Bourdieusian lens, we conceptualize the Canadian job market as a site where social inequalities are reproduced by employers and immigrants. We suggest that greater governmental and workplace support systems for socialization, integration, mentorship and building cultural awareness could help immigrants better achieve their career goals.

1. Introduction

While much work has established that immigrants to Canada often face lower economic success than their locally born counterparts, much less is known about how immigrants’ participation in different modalities of employment may influence their economic and social integration. One increasingly popular mode of work is remote work, a work arrangement wherein work is performed away from the regular premises of the employer [1]. This paper shares thematic findings from a qualitative instrumental case study that explored immigrants’ experiences of remote forms of employment in two of Canada’s largest immigrant-receiving provinces, Ontario and British Columbia. The aim of our study was to understand the contextual factors shaping immigrants’ experiences in remote work and how being thus employed impacted immigrants’ broader experiences of integration into Canadian society. The paper opens by addressing the rise in remote work globally and examining how the literature has discussed the varied advantages and disadvantages of this form of employment. We draw particular attention to the labour market integration challenges of immigrants to Canada and how their engagement in remote work may shape their broader experiences of integration into Canadian society. Additionally, we introduce Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and symbolic violence as a lens for understanding these struggles. The subsequent section describes the research design and study sample. We then share findings according to three themes identified through a reflexive thematic analysis. First, we address participants’ perceptions of their own shifting ‘value’ within the Canadian labour market. Second, we describe their reflections on the flexibility that is enabled by remote work, for better or for worse. Third, we explain the implications of remote work upon immigrants’ experiences of socialization and belonging within Canada. Our discussion reiterates the importance of examining the unique challenges experienced by immigrants engaged in remote work, particularly given that this form of employment continues to rise and can provide more flexible options for this population to integrate into the labour market following migration. We discuss our major findings through a Bourdieusian lens and link this discussion to participants’ opinions on what could improve their economic integration. We share novel findings regarding the specific reasons immigrants are drawn to remote work and what challenges they face when engaged in that form of employment.

Remote work is currently a widespread option for employers and employees. Remote work first became a popular work arrangement in the 1970s US oil crisis and its prominence grew in the 1990s due to advances in telecommunications and computer technology [2]. However, its current prevalence stems largely from adjustments that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. Remote work is more likely among certain employees and industries. These are workers in high-skilled, white-collar jobs [2] such as finance and insurance; educational services; professional, scientific and technical services; information and cultural industries; and public administration [4]. In Europe, the employees that are more likely to work remotely are those who have more family responsibilities, live far from work or are highly qualified [5].

Employees are drawn to remote work for several reasons. Workers expect to have a shorter commute, avoid office politics, experience a better work-home balance, and have greater autonomy, productivity, morale, job satisfaction, and flexibility [2,6]. Flexibility is often touted as the greatest benefit of remote work, as working hours can be adapted to the “needs and preferences of workers (and the demands of the employer)” [2] (p. 30). In a survey of 3000 remote workers across the globe, Buffer found that 98% of respondents wanted to continue in this form of work, citing flexibility in where to live and work and how to spend their time as the top benefits [7].

Despite the advantages of working remotely, there are also many reported disadvantages. According to Lu et al., while flexibility can allow employees to balance their work and family life, thereby enhancing their wellbeing, this arrangement may also lead to the flexibility paradox, where workers actually end up working longer hours and having less free time [3]. Another concern stemming from remote work is that professional isolation is negatively associated with job performance, especially for those workers who spend more time working from home and have limited face-to-face interaction [8]. Paradoxically, workers experiencing professional isolation are less likely to leave the job, perhaps due to other life demands, reduced confidence in their ability or the benefits of flexibility outweighing the downsides [8]. As Buffer noted, current focus is largely on the technical challenges of remote work, rather than the personal challenges [7]. Health issues are an especially serious concern. By providing flexibility, remote work can help workers find balance, thereby reducing health risks; however, by blurring the boundaries between work and home and making way for overwork, it may introduce health risks, such as “musculoskeletal problems, isolation and depression, stress and overwork” [2] (p. 33).

Regardless of its disadvantages, remote work is clearly prevalent. Statistics Canada noted that in November 2023, around 20% of Canadians worked mostly from home, compared to 7% in 2016 [9]. Hybrid work arrangements, where workers spend some time working from home and some time working at the employer’s premises, have also gained ground since 2022 [9]. What is less known about remote work in Canada is how immigrants experience their engagement in this type of work. This information is important to know for two reasons. First, Canada welcomes hundreds of thousands of immigrants yearly. In 2021, immigrants constituted 23% of Canada’s population [10]. These 8,361,505 immigrants most often resided in Ontario (50%) and British Columbia (17%), according to Statistics Canada [11]. Second, immigrants face unique barriers to labour market participation in terms of devalued experience and credentials, limited social networks, and discrimination [12,13,14], which pressures them to assimilate [15]. This is compounded by the facts that immigrants are paid substantially less than their Canadian-born counterparts [16] and their financial knowledge, which differs from that of their Canadian-born peers, exposing them to greater risk for fraud and exploitation [17]. We are therefore interested in how these kinds of precarious workers with often inadequate access to supports enter and navigate remote work.

Herrera et al. note that further research is needed on how remote working affects workers’ emotional and professional state [18]. In this paper, we seek to answer two research questions: (1) What contextual factors shape immigrants’ experiences of remote work? and (2) How does engaging in remote work influence immigrants’ broader experiences of integration into Canadian society? In answering these questions, we apply some of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts [19] when analyzing our findings. Bourdieu distinguishes among multiple types of capital, three of which are briefly covered below:

• Economic capital encompasses one’s material resources.
• Cultural capital comprises knowledge, skills and education that are relevant to and valued in a particular social context. This could include, for example, one’s official language proficiency. While economic capital could conceivably be acquired quickly, cultural capital is acquired gradually [20]. Another Bourdieusian concept relevant here is that of distinction. Bourdieu argued that people use their cultural preferences such as their taste in art and music to affiliate with particular groups (often viewed as more superior) and dissociate from others [20].
• Social capital refers to the networks and connections which allow an individual to gain other forms of capital [21].

Bourdieu describes forms of capital as convertible, meaning that social capital (e.g., one’s professional network) can lead to enhanced employment opportunities that can then be converted into economic capital (e.g., higher salary). However, misrecognition of capital (e.g., accent discrimination) can hinder its convertibility and contribute to symbolic violence [22], an oft-unperceived form of violence in which dominant norms are misrecognized as natural and common sense; this misrecognition results in the social reproduction of systems of domination that both those with and without power perceive as legitimate [23]. Through our analysis, we link participants’ experiences of entering the Canadian labour market and of working remotely to different forms of capital, and in so doing conceptualize the Canadian job market as a site where broader social inequalities and symbolic violence may be reproduced.

2. Materials and Methods

For this study, we adopted an instrumental case study design [24,25]. The purpose of this approach is to focus on a specific issue, in our case the experience of remote work, and to select a bounded case to generate knowledge about it. We specifically centred immigrants’ remote work experiences given the unique challenges immigrants face within the Canadian labour market. To be included in the study, participants had to be at least 18 years old, have immigrated to Canada in the last 10 years, be currently living in Canada, and have been working remotely for at least three months. While purposefully seeking participants meeting these inclusion criteria, we nonetheless adopted a convenience sampling approach. Participants were recruited through distribution of study information on social media and through agencies providing employment-services to immigrant populations. We also employed snowball sampling by inviting participants to refer other potentially eligible participants to the study. All participants consented to participating in the study.

A semi-structured interview guide (outlined in

Table A1. Outline of semi-structured interview guide.

Subjects	Topics Covered
Contextual factors	Finding housing.
	Joining social networks.
	Intended job in Canada.
	Accessing job-finding supports.
	Looking for work.
Engaging in remote work	Job duties and required skills.
	Working conditions.
	Challenges and advantages.
	Networking.
	Borders of work and home.
	Work–life balance.
	Immigrant identity in the workplace.
	Employment discrimination.
	Additional income streams.
	Influence of current job on future plans.
	Opinions on continuing remote work.
	Recommendations.

in Appendix A) was developed for interviews with participants. Semi-structured interviews were audio and video recorded via Zoom between March and July 2024. The study obtained ethics approval from The University of British Columbia (protocol H23-04007) and followed the standards outlined by the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975. Conversations lasted between 40–90 min and explored participants’ migration and settlement experience, their search for employment and their employment experiences. A summary of participants’ demographic information can be found in

Table 1. Demographic information of 21 participants.

Characteristic	Subcategory	f
Gender	Men	6
	Women	15
Age	18–24	2
	25–34	11
	35–44	6
	45–54	2
Work modality	Fully remote	19
	Hybrid	2
Highest degree	Community college	1
	Bachelor	2
	Graduate	18
Province	British Columbia	5
	Ontario	16
Immigrant entry category	Student	11
	Work permit	1
	Permanent resident	9

. We interviewed 21 remote workers (15 women; 6 men) between March and July 2024. They were all born in countries located in the Global South. Participants were highly educated, with 86% of them having graduate degrees (n = 18). Most resided in Ontario (n = 16), while five lived in British Columbia. Most participants fell in the 25–34 age bracket (n = 11), followed by those aged 35–44 (n = 6). Two each fell in the 18–24 and 45–54 age brackets. 17 of the 21 participants worked either 100% remotely or went into the office less than four times per year. The remaining four participants went into the office once or twice per week or once every two weeks, thus spending most of their working hours in a remote setting.

All interviews were transcribed verbatim and deidentified. In this study, many participants selected the pseudonym they wanted us to use in the dissemination of findings and we respect their agency in the research process in this way. Pseudonyms were assigned by the authors when the participants did not have a specific preference. Our use of pseudonyms rather than codes was a deliberate way of acknowledging participants’ subjectivities. This decision was informed by recent dialogue in the methodological literature which notes that allowing participants to choose their pseudonyms can allow them to express their sociocultural identity [26,27] and bring greater authenticity to discussions, which increases their empowerment and strengthens collaboration with researchers [28]. Transcripts were then uploaded into NVivo 12 software [29] and coded using a reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) [30]. RTA is a method of interpreting patterns in data which acknowledges and values the researcher’s subjectivity in interpretation. Central concepts in the data (themes) are actively generated by the researcher and do not naturally ‘emerge’. RTA follows five main steps: (i) familiarization with the data, (ii) coding the data, (iii) generating initial themes, (iv) reviewing and developing themes, and (v) refining, defining, and naming themes. This approach allowed us to examine in depth how participants described and perceived their experience of remote work and their position in the labour market, while considering how this related to wider social structures.

3. Results

We generated three themes from our analysis of the 21 interviews: (1) shifting labour market value, (2) occupational flexibility, and (3) socialization and belonging. We discuss each of them in turn in this section.

3.1. Shifting Labour Market Value

This theme addresses participants’ experiences of integrating into the Canadian labour market following their immigration and how they grappled with the sense that their previous education and employment experiences were undervalued by Canadian employers, which led to them taking up remote work as a necessity rather than a choice.

Participants in this study immigrated to Canada via different pathways (e.g., permanent residence programs or as students), but most of them aimed to permanently settle in Canada. They saw potential “better opportunities” (Kayla) for their career, family and personal wellbeing in Canada. They also noted that Canada had public healthcare and a “strong passport” that can “give you a lot of opportunities all over the world eventually” (Vani). Due to these factors, participants were highly motivated to succeed in Canadian society.

Given that participants wanted to thrive, many of them attempted to enhance or leverage their labour market value when looking for employment. To enhance their value, a few participants sought services from settlement agencies or their school, with varying degrees of success. Settlement agencies obtain government-funding to deliver programming in support of immigrants’ settlement, mainly geared toward acquiring employment and learning English [31]. Through these non-profit organizations, participants accessed a range of services such as being “linked to a mentor” (Rebecca), attending English language classes and “workshops like how to update your CV to Canadian format, interview skills, job search on LinkedIn” (Vishal), and doing “an internship” (Reesa). Some found these services to be valuable, even when they did not result in a job. Other participants who were students—and thus ineligible for these government-funded services—were able to find support via their educational institutions, whether through “resume building services” (John) or learning “how you can adapt for the Canadian way of life” (Gloria). Some participants arrived during the COVID-19 pandemic and were not able to access these services. Not all participants found these services helpful. For instance, when Roscoe contacted one organization, a representative told him they were unable to help, and he was not referred elsewhere. As a result, Roscoe said, “I lost hope, I give up. I’m not going to use any service anymore”. Other participants viewed upskilling as a strategy to become more marketable. Upskilling was a way to “give me more opportunities” in the same industry (Sophia) or “to pivot” and “be an expert” in a more desirable industry (Kayla). Yet another strategy for enhancing labour market value was leveraging existing skills to secure work. For instance, some bilingual participants were able to find work in translation, multilingual roles, or even start a side-job as a language tutor. A minority of participants continued working remotely for companies in their home country while trying to break into the Canadian job market.

Despite participants’ previously acquired skills and experience and their attempts to enhance their labour market value, barriers to entering the Canadian job market were still significant, and these circumstances resulted in their employment in remote work. Overall, participants’ assets were devalued, resulting in underemployment, rejection and even discrimination. Foreign education and work experience were often devalued by employers: “if you have any experience and or education in another country, people don’t care for it as much so it’s as good as you start from scratch here” (Hannah). This phenomenon has been well-documented (see, for example, [32]) so we do not expand on it here. Candidates were also passed over due to their legal status. For instance, Gloria, whose work permit was expiring in 9 months, was told multiple times, “Your visa’s going to expire soon so we cannot hire you”. Other reasons for rejection were being deemed overqualified or not being “what we are looking for” (Reesa). Diya, who eventually started her own business, reflected on possible cultural barriers in this process: “I think the employers were not able to understand what I can offer to them. Maybe the way I speak, the way I present, maybe they’re not finding it is a good fit”. The devaluation of their potential contribution meant that participants spent a long time searching for employment. Tess’s experience was not uncommon:

I spent almost 6 months applying to an obscene amount of jobs and […] I already have a bachelor’s and then I have an advanced diploma and I have experience in the field for over 8 years. So it was a little overwhelming when I was applying to 70 position, 80 positions and I will get, if anything, four interviews.

Unfortunately, some participants faced covert and overt employment discrimination during their job search. On the covert end, participants like Renee were called for a job interview for a managerial position, but when “they saw me, they were like, ‘Oh, well, we’re not hiring for that…all we have available is people who replenish the shelves at night. It’s from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.’” On the overt end, employers shared stereotypes about participants’ racialized group.

Ultimately, many participants ended up in remote work positions because it was the only job they were offered, not necessarily because it was the type of employment they were seeking. In Kabir’s words, “it’s just how it happened”. Employers’ devaluation of participants’ credentials and experience led many of them to “lower [their] standards…because your home experience is kind of irrelevant” (Kayla). While some saw this as unfair, other believed being “open to working anything” (Michelle) and having to “restart” and “forget about what [they] have achieved in [their] country” (Annie) were natural consequences of immigration. Unsurprisingly then, several participants who had years of experience described the work they did as lower level: “I did things like these in my first job when I had just started my career” (Reesa). In many cases the job was “definitely not the one that [they] wanted but the one [they] landed into” (Vani). This led to feelings of “not using [their] experience and competencies fully” (Rebecca). However, there was also the perspective that entry-level work could help in learning “the basics of the country, how this particular market works” and could give “the room to just get used to everything” (Reesa).

Another frustrating hurdle participants had to navigate was job scams on online job boards. Michelle pointed out that some companies spam sites so “you get 20 positions that are almost the same from the same company…and you have to sift through that to get to the actual important job positions”. Some actions are more insidious: applicants’ personal information is acquired by other companies (e.g., copycats, foreign entities) who contact them via text message, WhatsApp or email with unsolicited “too good to be true” job offers (Matt). Some of these job offers turn out to be a ‘bait-and-switch’, where applicants are told they must “invest money” to “study a financial course to then sell financial products” (Renee). Worse still, some applicants are encouraged to pay for job offers before realizing they have been scammed. This practice came as a surprise to newcomers: “in Canada, I don’t know, I was never expecting to see this when I came here” (Gloria). “I think that a lot of people, they fall for it because it’s like they just moved there, but because my friend warned me about that. So I didn’t fall for it” (Matt). These practices continue since these online job boards lack sufficient oversight: “there’s no way to report it…I can’t block a poster. I would love to block an employer” (Michelle).

Taken together, these experiences left participants feeling insecure about their labour market value and their self-worth, as they were acutely aware of how they were being evaluated. Thus, there was a vulnerability associated with being an immigrant in this type of work. Rebecca explained, “I have to prove myself and I do not want to be seen as someone non-professional, not competent enough, because I’m surrounded by colleagues who are Canadian born”. As a result, “you just have to work twice as hard as your other peers” (Kayla). This vulnerability was heightened by the “feeling that usually immigrants are top of the list when they want to choose who to lay off” (John).

When asked if their job was supporting their plans for their future, ten participants said their job was allowing them to learn and grow in their career and five mentioned that it was allowing them to save money. However, six echoed Vani’s words: “my job is only helping me to pay day-to-day bills. It is not helping me anything in the future.” Their job was not providing stability, nor did they feel like it was helping them to realize their potential. Nevertheless, many participants felt hopeful and positive about their future despite the struggles and setbacks they were currently facing.

In sum, participants leveraged existing skills, expanded their skills or accessed services from organizations to improve their chances of succeeding in Canada, but many struggled to find employment largely due to the devaluation of their experience and education. As a result, they engaged in remote work because it was the only job offer they received. Many participants felt insecure about their perceived value and believed they needed to work harder to be seen as equally valuable as Canadian-born colleagues.

3.2. Occupational Flexibility

This theme synthesizes the ways participants addressed the flexibility provided by remote work, including what they experienced as the benefits and drawbacks of this flexibility. Specifically, we examine how remote work interacts with other occupations, i.e., meaningful activities, in an individual’s life, paid or unpaid.

As immigrants, participants appreciated the flexibility that remote work afforded them because it facilitated their adjustment to life in Canada in many ways; this flexibility, however, became a ‘double-edged sword’ when it led to a lack of boundaries. Participants reported that working remotely granted them more time to connect to the individuals who mattered to them. For instance, Diya and Marie did not want to work far from their spouses and children. Remote work allowed them to contribute to the household but still be close to family. Some participants with more flexibility were able to chat and video call family members who still lived in other time zones. Jones noted, “Because of the time zone difference, they’re only available when I’m working. So I have more freedom to interact with them and to talk to them even while I’m working.” Roscoe, who had a rescue dog, and Carmen, who had brought her cat from her home country, were happy to be able to care for their pets at home. Several participants were also grateful to be able to visit their home countries while still working remotely: “if I want to go back to Middle East or India back home for some time or move around anywhere, then these online classes I can [give] from anywhere, that’s option I have” (Diya).

Remote work also allowed participants more freedom to structure their day. Apart from saving them money, not having to commute saved most participants several valuable hours per week that would be otherwise wasted; in Jones’s words, “a one-hour, two-hour journey to the office, that adds value to no one’s life”. To many caregivers, working from home could mean “I log off at a specific time and I’m in kitchen and taking care of the family” (Rebecca). With a flexible time arrangement, participants found it easier to manage work alongside activities such as getting their children ready for school, cooking, doing laundry, cleaning, exercising, and attending appointments. This was especially important for participants who had been used to hiring help for many of these tasks in their home country, which they could not afford to do in Canada. For participants, having freedom to structure their day meant that “at the end of the day, you’re not so tired. You’re not getting home at 5 p.m. and have to do everything” (Gloria). Renee described this type of arrangement as “mature” and “progressive”.

While working remotely also meant that participants had greater control over their space, they, like other immigrants, often lived in small spaces, which brought its own challenges. In terms of controlling one’s work area, Reesa pointed out that working from home allowed her to adjust to her work needs: “there are some days when you want it to be quiet, when you just want to be heads down and just focus on work. There are some days when you may have to step away from your screen a bit”. However, many participants spoke about the specific economic struggles associated with living in expensive cities like Toronto and Vancouver. While many of them made “good money” back home, the money they brought to Canada could only stretch so far because “the exchange rate is so ridiculous” (Michelle) and “housing is expensive” (Gloria). To deal with this, most participants rented a small, one-bedroom apartment or shared a two-bedroom apartment. Most participants worked from their bedrooms, followed by the living room; only three participants had a dedicated home office space.

Working from home in small spaces was not without its complications. For situations where both partners were working remotely, space management was even more complex. John preferred going to work in person when his partner was home to avoid having to share the space. Vishal and Reesa, who were married, tried several configurations before determining that they could not work together in the living room since both their jobs involved having meetings; Reesa ended up in the bedroom. Another couple, Vani and Kabir, initially struggled with sharing an apartment with a third roommate who also worked remotely. Eventually, however, they purchased a home, so they became able to work on different floors. Space challenges like these even affected relationship dynamics in the home. For instance, Diya sometimes taught online in the evening, which meant others in the house had to be quiet then and would “feel that impact”. Marie’s son would complain, “You’re not listening!” when she was on camera in meetings and could not give him attention, which led her to observe, “I have to sacrifice his emotions”.

The flexibility of remote work coupled with the limited working area created challenges with establishing boundaries between work and home, which resulted in overwork, feelings of depression and guilt in some instances. Some participants were comfortable with disconnecting: “For me it’s more of a clock time thing. As soon as it’s five, I’m done” (Vishal). Participants like Gloria ensured that they left the house after work to physically and mentally disconnect. However, others faced more serious challenges with finding “where work ends and where the house begins” (Reesa), which in turn affected the occupational flexibility they valued. They were tempted to return to work after hours if they remembered something important. As Roscoe described:

If I just have to go to my other room to send that quick email, it can just take me a few minutes, so it doesn’t ruin the experience, but it does kind of prevent you from being 100% present with your partner and your dog.

Similarly, working late sometimes affected Michelle’s relationship with her partner because her computer would remain on the dining table during dinner and distract her, “which is not ideal if you’re with another person”. For others, their work area being in the bedroom was “a constant reminder” of work (Vani). As Matt explained, “if I stay in my bedroom, I feel like, oh, maybe I have something to work on. Then I just get up and work on that”. Even working in the dining room made it “difficult to cut off from work at lunchtime” (Rebecca). The lack of spatial boundaries also inhibited a mental transition from work to relaxation, as Rebecca explained:

After work it actually takes longer for you to forget a bit of work because when you are in office and you go out of office, it’s like you’re leaving things behind. But when work is in your home, it’s not so easy.

Perhaps it was the need to prove themselves coupled with the lack of barriers between work and home that led many participants toward a tendency to overwork themselves, even if it was not requested by their employer. As Jones admitted, remote work “really creeps into your life. And it can take over if you aren’t very disciplined”. Matt, for example, was working three full-time remote work jobs simultaneously. He disclosed that being in his house for such an extended period “affect me to a point that, recently I started seeing therapist because I feel my mental health is not stable”. Some participants admitted that it was even hard to pick up a hobby: “I don’t want to use the free time because I feel like besides the fact that I’m not getting paid well…I feel like I need to fix this situation somehow” (Michelle). This conflict introduced feelings of guilt: “I enjoy reading but I do feel guilty if I spend much time in a book instead of looking for a job” (Tess). However, as Michelle pointed out, avoiding relaxation “doesn’t help because at the end of the day, you don’t end up doing things that you like because you feel bad but that makes you feel worse”.

To summarize, participants enjoyed that their type of employment allowed them to structure their day and space, but because they had small living accommodations and perhaps because of their insecurities resulting from their devalued labour market value, many of them faced difficulty establishing boundaries between work and home.

3.3. Socialization and Belonging

This theme explores how working remotely affected participants’ socialization and sense of belonging within their workplace and in the wider society. Although participants were orienting themselves to Canadian life, they worked alone at home for most or all of their time; this situation hindered their ability to socialize and to improve their already fragile labour market value. Participants lacked socialization opportunities to becoming familiar with local communication norms or Canadian office culture and practices, that is, “how the office works, how to go about it and what it entails” (Vishal). Many of them perceived this as a lost opportunity for integration. For instance, Diya shared that it “might have helped me to develop myself more into the Canadian culture”. Rebecca explained:

It wasn’t like I was inexperienced, but I wasn’t experienced in Canada. I didn’t know and understand the context of the country. Being new to a country, it requires a lot of learning and understanding and really being accepted in the system. And working remotely, I felt that it created a more difficult situation to understand the organization, understand the work, understand people with whom you’re working because you’re only getting emails and meeting them online.

Participants also faced difficulty with their linguistic orientation by working remotely as this type of work did not present them with enough opportunity to speak English. The English they had learned was usually “not conversational” (Vishal) and their proficiency was higher in writing than speaking. Furthermore, most of their conversations with family and friends were in their mother tongue, thereby reducing opportunities for English practice. Jones explained how cultural background can also influence misunderstanding: “Sometimes I might use a word that’s not offensive at all but others, like in Canada, sometimes people think it’s offensive”. Most notably, participants highlighted their struggles with learning the Canadian cultural practice of ‘small talk’. Rebecca noted that “if you’re not able to contribute to the small talks, you would feel weird”. Consequently, participants felt they had to make an effort to learn about Canadian interests, sometimes to the detriment of their own. For instance, Hannah admitted, “I’m always trying to…do an activity so I can talk about it with people or watch something so I can talk about it with people or cook cool food so I can talk about it with people. It’s just never-ending”.

Especially when immigrants are both new to the country and the job, a lack of familiarity with norms can lead to a hesitation to reach out to others. Reesa admitted:

Especially in your first job, while you are navigating your way through things over here, being remote, there’s a certain hesitation that comes with reaching out to people so you think twice before reaching out […] whereas had I been working in person, I could just ask the person next to me without thinking much about it.

On a related note, participants also recognized that by working remotely, they had limited workplace visibility and networking opportunities, which they felt would render them more likely to remain undervalued and, thus, underemployed. Because there are no coffee breaks or casual conversations, for instance, “you get to speak to people only for work, which doesn’t help in networking” (Rebecca), which is a crucial activity in the Canadian job market. While some companies arrange coffee chats, they are “usually done once in a while” as compared to a daily coffee break; hence the “scope of networking is greatly affected because of working from home” (Vani). Roscoe, on the other hand, was being mentored by his supervisor, who introduced him to people in her network. In this way, there could be opportunities for networking despite being remote. Other participants spoke about webinar events, job fairs, job boards, and other applications that facilitated networking remotely. Nevertheless, networking introduced a cultural barrier for participants like Carmen, who disclosed that in her home country, it “is not common to use networking for find a job”. Participants therefore felt that working remotely diminished their workplace visibility, thus affecting their ability to be recognized, considered or promoted. Vani, for instance, pointed out that “you don’t meet people, they don’t know you, they don’t know your personality so it’s hard to progress when people can’t see you”. Michelle noted:

When you work remotely, you’re not given as much consideration or thought as people who work in person. There is this, I don’t know if I should call it bias, but it’s like if they see you, you’re there… So I feel like so many of the hurdles I face would not have happened if I was at least hybrid.

Working remotely, despite providing many benefits for participants, also resulted in deep feelings of alienation. At the interpersonal level, participants longed for a deeper connection with their colleagues. Rebecca noted, “In my first job, I should say I felt quite lonely”. Annie also pointed out that this lack of workplace socialization, whether by “say greeting to other colleagues and having a meeting in person, sometime having dinner or having lunch together, going out, hanging out sometimes together” affects one’s quality of life because “we also need the kind of outdoor activity to make our life more meaningful”. Even self-described introverted participants noted there was “another side of me that kind of wants interactions. Otherwise, I feel it’s too isolated” (Roscoe).

These isolating factors resulted in participants “feeling out of place” (Rebecca). As Kayla explained, “The sense of belonging is low. It’s kind of like feeling excluded. You don’t feel like you are part of them […] I was just there for money and that’s all.” Participants clearly yearned for more socialization from the workplace, especially as immigrants who were separated from family and friends and who were still trying to find their way socially in Canada. Matt, for example, confessed, “when you work from home you don’t have a lot of interaction with people. So it’s kind of like feel lonely.” Vishal pointed out that a prolonged lack of interaction with others “is not really good for health, mental or physical health, and just overall lifestyle also”.

Working from home even influenced participants’ broader socialization. Almost two-thirds of participants reported experiences of social isolation beyond the workplace. This type of work often led to a lack of “contact with the outside space” (Carmen). Tess explained, “I am already at the house and usually what you do after work is go to your house...that means that I am a total of 24 h at home.” This, of course, hampered their social integration in their new home. Jones, for instance, noted that his “social life has taken a backseat and so I’ve not engaged in building my own community yet”. At the same time, he believed “the main driver of happiness or integration or a person feeling integrated into society is really forming those social circles.” Some participants depended on secondary jobs to access the missing socialization. As Sophia explained, “It’s good for me because, of course, it’s a side job, but also because I can socialize and live in a different atmosphere”. Similarly, Carmen enjoyed doing food delivery on the side because it allowed her to “change the routine”, get out of the house and get acquainted with her new neighbourhood.

The tensions between feeling isolated but wanting the flexibility offered by remote work led many participants to identify hybrid work as their ideal work arrangement. Some pointed out that “after coming to Canada, I noticed that it’s not quite the same thing to work remotely, even if I used to love it” (Tess). They believed the in-person aspect of hybrid work would allow them to reduce their isolation, become familiar with the Canadian office environment, become more confident, and have a better connection with co-workers, while the remote work aspect would allow them to retain their occupational flexibility. Kayla summarized the reasoning well:

I think as a newcomer, we prefer the remote job because most of the time because of the nature of the Canadian environment, it saves me from traveling, but I think sometimes it’s really needed to be in the same room and know each other, build connections, make interactions, especially as a newcomer. I think it’s necessary.

Participants who had previously been in a fully remote arrangement but now worked hybrid indicated that their feelings of isolation had decreased significantly. For instance, Rebecca, who still had a full-time job but now saw her co-workers once per week, reported, “I adapted myself in the first two months”. Kayla, who had previously been in full-time remote work, felt that her part-time hybrid work was “more than a job” because “that sense of belonging and being part of the team is there”.

This final theme illustrates how participants’ physical remoteness contributed to isolation at and beyond the workplace. They had limited opportunities to socialize or network with others and to understand and integrate into Canadian society, which left them feeling out of place and invisible. Taken together, these factors could perpetuate immigrants’ vulnerability. One solution they identified was a switch from remote to hybrid work so they would be able to socialize in person, which they believed would aid integration.

4. Discussion

Based on our analysis of the 21 interviews we conducted with immigrants to Canada who were working remotely, we identified three themes. First, ‘shifting labour market value’ highlighted that despite enhancing or expanding their skillsets and accessing services, many participants still faced labour market devaluation. They ended up in remote work because it was their only job offer. This experience led to feelings of insecurity. Second, ‘occupational flexibility’ illustrated that participants enjoyed the flexibility remote work provided but they often could not draw distinct boundaries between work and home because they lived in small spaces. Third, ‘socialization and belonging’ addressed how being physically removed from the workplace affected participants’ connections with others both within and outside of the workplace.

With these themes in mind, we conceptualize the Canadian job market as a site of social reproduction, that is, a site where social inequalities are reproduced, from the time that immigrants start looking for employment to their experiences of, in this case, remote work.

When seeking employment, immigrants’ forms of cultural capital—their education, experience and other skills—were devalued compared to their Canadian counterparts, despite their attempts to enhance their capital via settlement services and upskilling. Their motivation to succeed in Canada, along with their need for economic capital, pushed them to accept any job offer, which was how most of them ended up in remote work and in employment that was below their skill level. This is an example of Bourdieu’s symbolic violence, in which dominant norms are legitimized, thereby permitting the reproduction of systems of domination [23]. From the participants’ perspective, employers upheld the notion that immigrants are second-class citizens by devaluing their labour market value. Participants, after much disappointment, internalized these norms and accepted that they needed to start from scratch and work harder than locals. In this way, despite being differently positioned within the system of power that is the Canadian labour market, both employers and immigrants reproduced and upheld norms that dismissed immigrants’ existing value and minimized injustices embedded in the system.

When immigrants secured remote work, their workplaces varied greatly in how much support they provided beyond economic capital to help immigrants succeed in their career goals. Participants recognized the importance of increasing their cultural and social capital to become professionally successful. Because so much of their lives took place at home, they looked to the workplace as an avenue for strengthening these forms of capital. Although some participants like Roscoe were lucky to receive mentorship, most workplaces did not have systems in place to support immigrants’ growth and integration. Participants desired organic, casual conversations with colleagues that would allow them to practice their English, network, understand the office culture, receive support and feel a sense of ease and belonging. Such opportunities were mostly absent due to the modality of their work. As a result, these participants saw their jobs as providing a paycheck and nothing more because their employer did not recognize or acknowledge how critical social interaction and cultural understanding were for them, and how working remotely can inhibit their access to these exchanges. These employers seemed to assume that immigrants already had the social and cultural skills to navigate the Canadian workplace remotely. Our work provides further nuance to the work of Laliberte Rudman and Aldrich [33], who found that those experiencing long term unemployment were ‘activated’ by neoliberal policies and were highly engaged in job preparation and search activities but ultimately remained ‘stuck’ given their lack of control over employers’ preferences and expectations.

In Hannah’s case, her quest for increasing social capital encouraged her to constantly do something new in her free time to “talk about it with people” since she recognized the importance of small talk. This is a strategy that immigrants may see as necessary, even if their own interests must be sacrificed. This finding echoes a study of immigrants’ experiences in New Zealand and Canada, whereby participants were found to purposefully engage in activities for strategic reasons (e.g., golf), while neglecting others that were more personally meaningful to them (e.g., attending religious services) to build their social capital [34]. Others in our study, however, could not determine how to improve their situations. In this way, the modality of remote work can perpetuate social inequity: if immigrants do not increase their cultural and social capital, it will be more difficult for them to become visible in the workplace, to find work that matches their skill level and to become socially and economically mobile. However, with no other options, they may remain in their remote work jobs, thereby becoming stuck in a cycle of precarity and dissatisfaction. This reflects findings by Lam and Triandafyllidou, who explored whether forms of platform work did indeed function as a stepping stone to labour market integration for immigrants, or whether it instead became a trap [35].

Despite their challenges with socialization and belonging, participants enjoyed the flexibility of their remote work jobs. We imagine that having some measure of agency while adjusting to life in a new country could provide immigrants with a sense of comfort. It therefore makes sense that they viewed hybrid work as a possible solution to their problems. They saw it as a strategy for achieving better balance. Going to work two or three times a week would provide in-person opportunities for building their social and cultural capital and professional visibility, while working from home on the other days would allow them to retain some measure of flexibility.

Our discussion is limited to a sample of 21 participants, which included only 6 self-identified men. Although trends indicate that more women engage in remote work than men [36], we nevertheless invite future researchers to include a greater sample of men to explore the nuances of their experience. While we cannot generalize our findings to the entire population of remote working immigrants in Canada, we intuit that these themes will recur within a larger study. Future work should expand this investigation to other provinces and territories of Canada, both anglophone and francophone. A large-scale survey of remote-working immigrants’ experiences, similar to Buffer [7] would be useful for understanding immigrants’ circumstances. One final area of future research could be a comparison of how companies describe supporting remote-working immigrants’ integration and how/whether these employees perceive such supports.

5. Conclusions

We conclude this paper by suggesting improvements that both government and employers could implement, given that facilitating immigrant integration requires participation from multiple institutions [37,38]. Participants made powerful statements about the regulations surrounding their situation. Diya pointed out that “from the government point of view, there is lot of efforts going on to integrate the newcomers to the society. But somewhere there is a gap where the employer is not finding that value in the immigrants”. Participants wanted employers to stop discriminating against them based on their legal status and lack of Canadian experience. As Reesa expressed:

Incentivizing corporates would definitely add a lot of value because then they are driven to hire more newcomers and that would help newcomers not just take up minimum-paying jobs or minimum wage jobs but also find work that is closer to their experience, closer to their overall career so far.

Government oversight may be necessary for ensuring that online job boards make a concerted effort to remove bad actors. Without the relevant social networks like Matt’s friend who warned him about online job scams, unsuspecting immigrants like Gloria are especially vulnerable to being taken advantage of. Several scholars have suggested ways to address fraudulent posts [39,40,41] but these may need to be directed by the government.

Raihan et al. [42] noted that a lack of labour market integration can affect one’s social integration, mental health and overall satisfaction, and many participants identified struggles in these areas. At the level of the workplace, there is much that employers can do to improve immigrants’ experience of remote work if they cannot offer the hybrid arrangements that immigrants desire. For some employees, the work is too flexible in that it results in difficulty drawing boundaries (i.e., they experience the flexibility paradox mentioned by Lu et al. [3]). Immigrants could benefit from explicit training and guidance about time management, creating boundaries despite living in a small space, and resisting the pressure to overwork. They also need structured support for their mental wellness given the challenges they face and the isolation they often experience. Given that immigrants are often underemployed, it is likely that they will not have the financial means to access such support. Employers who hire remote workers should be invested in ensuring their mental health.

Finally, employers must address the isolation that participants experienced. These participants would benefit from increased opportunities for socialization with their colleagues, since it is harder to have a spontaneous conversation online and not commuting means participants have less chances to socialize with others. In Kayla’s words, “some team building or some activities that can make you meet your other team members, meet your other functions, to collaborate, would really help”. Additionally, structured mentorship programs would benefit immigrants as they would have a designated person they could reach out to for guidance.

Overall, this study has identified how working remotely can exacerbate challenges that immigrants face. The devaluation of their cultural capital can be worsened by their lack of visibility and limited socialization in the workplace. Furthermore, they struggle to build capital and establish boundaries when the workplace lacks systems to support their growth and cultural awareness. Such situations can affect immigrants’ wider social belonging when they rely on their workplace as a core means of initial integration. Thus, both government and employers must think more seriously about they can help remote working immigrants navigate the tensions they face in this type of employment.