The labour shortage crisis affects all industries and all regions across Canada. Everyday the media has a new story for us: businesses shortening their hours of operations (if not closing altogether!), bosses on the verge of burnout, working on the shop floor and not on management, business refusing contracts, etc. We have never seen a labour shortage of this amplitude in Canada before!

Thankfully, government officials have taken notice and have put in place a number of new measures (yet again!) to facilitate the hiring of foreign workers and the retention of foreign workers already in Canada. Here are some of the latest measures:

  • Post-graduate work permit (PGWP) holders in Canada will soon be able to renew their open work permit for an additional period of 18 months if their PGWP expires sometime in 2022. Details on this new measure should be published soon by authorities.
  • Express Entry invitations should resume in July for applicants in the following categories: Federal Skilled Worker, Canadian Experience Class and Federal Skilled Worker. For those abroad interested in obtaining permanent residency directly: it may soon be possible again! (Invitations for the Federal Skilled Worker category have been suspended since December 2020). Moreover, IRCC plans on bringing back down processing delays to the normal of six months very soon!

Regarding work permits applications, authorities continue to receive a record volume of applications. While processing delays remain high for many categories, IRCC is busy improving its efficiency by hiring new agents and improving its electronic services. So far in 2022, IRCC has processed 216,000 work permit applications, compared to 88,000 in 2021 for the same period. The current system may not be perfect but it is running at full speed!

More specifically in Quebec

According to Quebec’s former Finance Minister, Mr. Carlos Leitao, the labour shortage is the main economic issue in the province. With that in mind, the provincial government reached certain agreements with its federal counterpart, in order to put in place new measures to welcome more temporary foreign workers in the province:

  • The IMP+ or the International Mobility Program Plus recently gave the opportunity to Holders of a Certificate of Selection by Quebec (CSQ) residing outside Quebec to apply for an open work permit. Only CSQs issued through the regular stream of the Quebec Skilled Worker Program and those issued through the permanent immigration pilot program for workers in the artificial intelligence, information technologies and visual effects sectors are admissible. Moreover, those work permits will be issued in limited numbers: 14,700 this year, and then 7,350 yearly.
  • The Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has seen its share of changes in recent weeks:
    • A large number of unqualified positions have been added to the Simplified Process (this provides the employer with an exemption to the minimum advertising requirements). This move was also accompanied by the separation of the Simplified Process into two distinct categories: high-wage positions and low-wage positions. Foreign workers coming to work in low-wage jobs will now be offered the same protection as low-wage workers in the regular process.
    • The cap limit on the proportion of low-wage foreign workers at a specific work location has also been largely loosened:
      • For all jobs admissible to the simplified process: no cap!
      • All other jobs: 20%.
    • The duration of the work permit has also been bonified in many categories. Most workers will be eligible to 24 or 36 months.

The labour shortage has forced the adoption of many new and varied measures by authorities. Possibilities are expanding for employers and for workers ready to move to Canada, but finding the right solution will require a very good understanding of the system!