OTTAWA, ON: Employers planning to hire Temporary Foreign Workers for their businesses will have to explore other available options before applying under LMIA. The government of Canada this week announced a series of changes to adjust the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program due to a decrease in job vacancies in Canada.
TFW Program is designed to be responsive to changes in the labour market. It helps Canadian employers fill labour and skills shortages temporarily when Canadians and permanent residents are not available. The Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program experienced a surge in demand due to the post-pandemic economy, low unemployment rates, and record-high job vacancy rates in 2022.
According to the government, job vacancies fell by 25,400 (-3.6%) to 678,500 in the fourth quarter of 2023, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline from the record high reached in the second quarter of 2022 (983,600).
Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, announced that some time-limited measures under the TFW Program Workforce Solutions Road Map will not be renewed and will end, earlier than planned, this spring.
“To address those labour shortages, the Program adopted a series of policy changes. With changing labour market conditions and declining job vacancies, the Government is adjusting the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to ensure the program continues to only be used in cases where there are no workers here in Canada that can fill the necessary role,” Boissonnault said.
Effective May 1, 2024 New Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) will be valid for six months (a decrease from 12 months) to ensure accurate labour market needs.
Under the changes, all employers identified in the 2022 Workforce Solutions Road Map will have a reduction from 30% to 20% of their total workforce that can come in through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, under the low wage stream, with an exception for the construction and health care sectors.
The minister said that the employers will need to explore every option before applying for an LMIA — including recruiting asylum seekers with valid work permits here in Canada.
In addition, as of January 1, 2024, employers are required to annually review the wages of temporary foreign workers to ensure they reflect increases to prevailing wage rates for their given occupation and region of work.
Through wage increases, these reviews will ensure that employers continue to pay temporary foreign workers at the prevailing wage level throughout their period of employment. For the vast majority of cases, when wages are reviewed, they are increased for the workers. If not, they remain the same and cannot go down upon review.
As part of the Government’s broader commitment to help protect temporary foreign workers from mistreatment and abuse, Budget 2021 committed $49.5 million over three years to implement a new Migrant Worker Support Program to better support temporary foreign workers by addressing power imbalances between employers and workers.
