We use the Levenshtein linguistic distance measure to explore the question of whether the distance between an immigrant’s mother tongue and a Canadian official language (English or French) has an impact on his/her economic integration into the labor market. Using microdata from the master files of the 2001 and 2006 Canadian censuses and from the 2011 National Household Survey, we investigate the relationship between linguistic distance and the intensity of use of English and French at work in the Montreal metropolitan area. That region is characterized by the presence of sizeable French- and English-speaking communities, as well as by a large number of immigrants from a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds. Those elements of linguistic diversity interact in the environment of English being the lingua franca. We find that linguistic distances between immigrants’ mother tongues and English and French have an important impact on the relative intensities of use of the two Canadian official languages at work. We further investigate the role of the languages used at work on the earnings of immigrants by estimating earnings functions. We find that the use of both French and English is remunerated positively in the labor market, but that using English at work has a larger impact on earnings.

我们使用Levenshtein语言距离测度来探讨移民的母语与加拿大官方语言（英语或法语）之间的距离是否对他/她融入劳动力市场的经济产生影响的问题。利用2001年和2006年加拿大人口普查的主文件以及2011年全国家庭调查的微观数据，我们研究了语言距离与蒙特利尔都会区工作中英语和法语使用强度之间的关系。该地区的特点是存在大量讲法语和英语的社区，以及大量来自各种语言背景的移民。语言多样性的那些要素在英语作为通用语言的环境中相互作用。我们发现，移民的母语与英语和法语之间的语言距离对工作中使用两种加拿大官方语言的相对强度具有重要影响。我们通过估算收入函数，进一步研究了工作语言在移民收入中的作用。我们发现，在劳动力市场上，法语和英语的使用能给他们带来积极的报酬，但是在工作中使用英语对收入的影响更大。