Why more Canadian employers are hiring foreign workers
More work permits are issued every year. Here are some of the ways Canadian employers can hire foreign workers.
Canadian employers hire hundreds of thousands of international workers every year through more than 100 different work permit pathways. With the exception of 2020, these numbers have only been going up since 2015 and there are no signs of stopping.
Canada is facing a high number of job vacancies and a relatively low unemployment rate, which means there are more jobs open than there are qualified workers to fill them.
Foreign workers need a work permit in order to work legally in Canada. In some cases, the employer has to do what is called a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), or a labour market test, in order to hire a foreign worker. Although, the majority of work permits issued in a given year are LMIA-exempt.
In this article, we will talk about the difference between the two biggest categories of work permit programs, and how employers can use them to hire international talent.
LMIA and LMIA-exempt work permits
There are two major work permit programs: the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), and the International Mobility Program (IMP).
The major difference between the two is that the TFWP requires employers to get an LMIA, whereas IMP work permits are LMIA-exempt.
The TFWP is meant to address labour shortages in Canada. Employers must complete the LMIA process to demonstrate to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) that the hiring of a foreign worker is due to the absence of suitable workers. ESDC assesses the LMIA to confirm that hiring a foreign worker will have no negative impact on the Canadian labour market. Once the employer receives the positive or neutral LMIA, they provide a copy to the foreign worker so they can submit it along with their work permit application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The employee can then start working once their work permit application is approved.
By contrast, the IMP exists to support Canada’s broad social, cultural and economic objectives, so there is no need for a labour market test. There are many IMP work permits that are a result of Canada’s free trade agreements. For instance, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA, formerly known as NAFTA) is a prominent free trade agreement that allows U.S. and Mexican citizens to work in Canada without an LMIA. Youth from around the world are able to work in Canada under the IMP due to youth mobility agreements between Canada and certain other nations.
Canada also allows international student graduates and eligible spouses and common-law partners to get open work permits under the IMP. Open work permits allow workers to accept any job offer in Canada regardless of employer or occupation. All open work permits fall under the IMP, so employers do not need an LMIA to hire these workers.
