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Starting today, employers in Canada will face new restrictions on their hiring of low-wage temporary foreign workers — a policy shift the federal government says will push businesses to make a greater effort to hire workers already in Canada.
Under the new restrictions:
- Employers will be limited to hiring 10 per cent of their workforce through the program's low-wage stream.
- Employers will be unable to hire through this program if they are in census metropolitan areas with unemployment rates of more than six per cent.
- Contracts for low-wage positions will be generally be limited to one year.
There are some exceptions to the above rules, such as for employers in health care and construction.
The federal government is aiming to rein in the temporary foreign worker program after it loosened hiring rules in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, the low-wage stream has seen particular growth, with the number of positions approved through this stream nearly quadrupling from 21,394 in 2018 to 83,654 in 2023.
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