OTTAWA – Following up on changes announced to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program announced on August 26th, Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, has presented further details of next steps.
Specifically:
- The 10% employer cap on temporary foreign workers under the Low-wage Stream of the TFW Program will apply across Canada, including occupations that fall under the Traitement Simplifié in Quebec. An exception will be made for employers seeking to fill labour shortages in the healthcare, construction, and food processing sectors, which will be permitted to keep a 20% cap.
- All Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) approved for Low-wage Stream positions will be limited to a work duration of a maximum of one year, including those processed under the Traitement Simplifié, except for occupations under the Primary Agriculture Stream.
- The Refusal to Process (RTP) policy will apply to all Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) with an unemployment rate of over 6%. An exception will be made for employers seeking to fill labour shortages in the healthcare, construction, and food processing sectors. The CMA unemployment rate information will be updated four times a year, when the first Labour Force Survey of each financial quarter is published. The list will be updated on the same day that the data is published.
The press release cited that employers in Canada have a responsibility to invest in workers available in Canada, as well as investing in retraining or upskilling to ensure current employees can adapt to the economy of the future. The Government of Canada will continue to provide supports for training and education.
Further adjustments to the program will be introduced as required in the coming months.
Within the next 90 days, further review will be undertaken of the Program, which could result in changes to the High-Wage Stream, to existing LMIA applications for which positions have not been filled, to sectoral exceptions, or refusing to process other LMIA applications, including for rural areas.
According to the latest data from the Labour Force Survey, the overall unemployment rate rose from 6.4% to 6.6%. The unemployment rate trended up since April 2023, rising 1.5 percentage points over the period. In August 2024, there were 1.5 million unemployed people, an increase of 60,000 (+4.3%) from the previous month.
Business Examiner Staff
