Jobs in Canada: Temporary Foreign Workers programme changed

Published Saturday, March 30, 2013

By Majorie van Leijen

A number of reforms will be made to the Temporary Foreign Worker Programme to Canada, the Canadian government announced last week when it released its budget for 2013.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Programme facilitates Canadian employers to hire workers from abroad, without these workers having to apply for residency directly.

When an employer in Canada wishes to hire a worker from abroad, a positive Labour Market Opinion (LMO) for the targeted profession is required. Depending on the profession, the employer needs to advertise the job position for a given period of time on local wires.

While these measures are in place to assure that local workforce is prioritised, the changes are introduced to ensure this even more.

While further details will be revealed in the coming months, the government announced that it would take the following measures:

- Introducing user fees for employers applying for a Labour Market Opinion.

- Amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations to restrict the identification of non-official languages as job requirements when hiring through the Temporary Foreign Worker process.

- Assisting employers who legitimately rely on temporary foreign workers, due to a lack of qualified Canadian applicants, and finding ways to ensure that they have a play to transition to a Canadian workforce over time.

- Increasing the recruitment efforts that employers must make to hire Canadians before they will be eligible to apply for temporary foreign workers, including increasing the length and reach of advertising (at present, employers usually need to advertise for a job in Canada for a minimum of two weeks).

- Working with employers to ensure that temporary foreign workers are relied upon only when Canadians genuinely cannot fill jobs.

The Temporary Worker Programme aims at directly targeting employees in fields where labour shortages are experienced, such as in key industries as healthcare, natural resources, and information technology.

Last year, approximately 200,000 temporary foreign workers came to Canada to perform work in a range of key fields .

[Image via Shutterstock]

ALSO READ:

9 in 10 employees face favouritism in workplace: Poll