Despite the federal government’s announced intention to clamp down on temporary foreign workers, employers ramped up their requests to 81,000 in the last three months of last year. More than half of the applications were for temporary farm workers.
Last year employers were approved to bring in about 240,000 temporary foreign workers. That was 7.5 per cent more than 2018, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic cramped all employment.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said that Canadian companies have become “addicted” to temporary foreign labour.
“Let me be clear, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a last resort,” Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said at a news conference last month. “Employers should not use the Temporary Foreign Worker Program as a means to avoid offering competitive wages to Canadians.”
The federal government broadened access to temporary foreign workers in April, 2022, through a mix of temporary and permanent measures aimed at helping employers who were struggling to find new hires.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian unemployment rate hit a low of 4.8 per cent in the summer of 2022 – leading to stiff competition to fill vacancies.
Meat packers were among employers that the federal government allowed 25 per cent of job vacancies to be filled with temporary foreign workers, up from the previous cap of 10 per cent.
Last month, Ottawa announced several changes to the program, including that a few industries, such as accommodation and food services, would move down to the 20 per cent cap, effective May 1.
“I think the abuses that we see in the program would be quickly solved if we had open work permits,” said Catherine Connelly, a professor at McMaster University and the author of Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
“Because the workers who experience mistreatment, it starts out small enough. … It would be really nice if they could quit and work somewhere else before something terrible happens to them,” she said.
