Employers rush to fill jobs with Temporary Foreign Workers (TFP) - Globe and Mail Reports

As reported by The Globe and Mail, Canadian companies are ramping up their use of the Temporary Foreign Worker program to fill jobs after its contentious expansion by the federal government.

In the second quarter of this year, employers received approval to hire about 45,200 positions through the TFW program – the most since at least 2017, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of figures recently published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC. The April-to-June quarter tends to be a slower period for approvals: Many companies seek authorization in the winter, ahead of seasonal hiring for the summer.

This past spring period, however, was booming: TFW approvals were more than double those of the same period in 2018 and 2019.

The restaurant industry is increasingly turning to the TFW program. In the second quarter, employers were approved to hire 3,100 cooks, an increase of 116 per cent from a year earlier. They were also authorized to hire more than 2,500 food-service supervisors, an increase of 135 per cent. Krawchuk Enterprises Inc., the owner of McDonald’s Corp. restaurants in British Columbia, was approved for 45 of such roles, all in the low-wage stream.

To hire through the TFW program, employers must submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment to the federal government to demonstrate that they can’t find local workers to fill positions. The IRCC numbers reflect positive assessments. The immigration department removes employers of caregivers and business names that include personal names from its public dataset of positive LMIAs.

After an approval, temporary foreign workers must get the appropriate work permits. The IRCC numbers show the number of approved positions, rather than the number of workers who received permits.

Of late, the immigration system has been stymied by a backlog of applications, causing frustration for employers, hopeful workers and international students as they await decisions.

“The processing has become outrageously slow,” said Mario Bellissimo, founder of Toronto-based Bellissimo Law Group. “Employers are really struggling, as are workers, trying to get the papers and it’s just not moving fast enough.”

The federal government has made other decisions to bolster the pool of foreign labour. Earlier this month, Ottawa said it was temporarily lifting the 20-hour weekly limit on the number of hours that international students could work off-campus while postsecondary classes are in session.

Get the full original article and employment graphs here, on The Globe and Mail website: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-temporary-foreign-workers-canada/

Also see – Canada plans to boost immigration to 500,000 immigrants per year!

Canada plans to boost immigration to 500,000 immigrants per year!