HR and employers facing new era of restrictions in hiring foreign workers
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called last week for the federal government to axe Canada’s temporary foreign worker (TFW) program, adding to the national debate about the future of Canada’s labour market and where immigrant workers will fit into that.
Poilievre’s comments have drawn headlines and sparked discussion across the country, but they also reflect a broader policy trend that has been developing over the past several years, says Reis Pagtakhan, corporate immigration lawyer with MLT Aikins.
“It’s pretty crystal clear to me that that trend is going to continue, at least for the next year, two, maybe three,” he says.
“Whether the whole program is scrapped or not, businesses are still going to be set up in a situation where the number of foreign nationals that can come into Canada to work will be smaller than in past years. Absolutely certain of that.”
Entry-level jobs, youth employment, and regional impacts
Poilievre and his party argue that restricting access to foreign workers in lower-wage jobs will help Canadian youth. While the Conservatives blame the Liberals for that, it’s not only those on the right of the political spectrum who want to see the TFW program scrapped.
In B.C. last Thursday, premier David Eby echoed Poilievre’s statements, telling reporters in Surrey that “here in British Columbia, we see an unacceptably high level of unemployment among young people, which has been linked both to the international student visa program as well as the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.”
As Pagtakhan explains, even if a complete cancellation of the TFW doesn’t happen, possible restrictions will mean that employers who have come to rely on foreign workers for seasonal, entry-level, and even some skilled roles should begin to plan now for a future with significantly reduced availability.
Both temporary and permanent immigration streams are tightening, and employers should expect these restrictions to continue – regardless of which party is in power.
“Where they have really put the pressure on are the lower wage occupations,” Pagtakhan explains.
“They’re making it harder to get work permits for those individuals, they’re restricting the years or the term of the work permit to one year in many cases, which means that the employer has to keep going back and back and back and advertising for that, and it really dissuades employers from using that program.”
Shrinking foreign worker pool: what’s changing
Not only is the administrative burden and uncertainty associated with hiring foreign workers in lower-wage roles increasing, Pagtakhan explains; it also makes planning for the long term more difficult for HR leaders and employers.
“If you're looking at using that program to recruit someone who can work for you immediately and then live here for the rest of their life and build a career with you, that might not be the way to go,” he says.
“Because there's no clear pathway that way anymore.”
This is especially true in regions that typically struggle to hire lower-wage employees, such as in more remote rural areas.
“No matter what you do in some of these places, you can’t find people, just because the population is too small to allow a robust labour market,” he says, explaining that this creates a key challenge for Canadian policy-makers and employers alike. Employers in these areas may find themselves unable to fill critical roles, even as overall unemployment remains stable or declines in urban centres.
Permanent residency pathways and international students
The federal government has also tightened pathways to permanent residency, especially for those in lower-wage roles. In previous years, the prospect of permanent residency made Canada an attractive destination for many skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Now, Pagtakhan explains, it’s a different story; with fewer ways for foreign workers to remain in Canada long-term, employers may struggle to attract high-quality candidates for temporary roles – not only because of less availability, but because those workers may be less willing to invest in a future in Canada that isn’t guaranteed.
“What used to happen is people would come here as temporary workers, essentially [as] probationary permanent residents, and then after a period of time, many of them, through one immigration program or another, could immigrate,” says Pagtakhan.
“It is getting much harder to do that, especially if you’re not working here for a long time.”
International students are also caught in the policy shift. According to CBC News, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), reported that “permits for students from abroad to study in Canada plummeted in the first half of this year, with nearly 90,000 fewer issued than a year earlier.”
Recommendations for employers: clarity, planning, and adaptation
With so much uncertainty around the TFW program and hiring on the way, Pagtakhan has clear advice for employers and HR in Canada: conduct thorough appraisals of TFW needs right now, to determine which roles will be most at risk under new restrictions.
“The more complex it is to be able to do the job, to be qualified to do the job, the better chance that you can get a temporary foreign worker if you can’t find a Canadian or a Canadian permanent resident,” he says.
“But for entry level jobs, jobs where an employer can train a person within weeks, jobs where the wage isn’t high enough [to attract] … jobs that are looked at as entry level as opposed to career, those will be the more challenging ones, because they are already under siege by the immigration system.”
For positions that are likely to be affected, HR leaders may need to invest more in recruitment, training, and retention of domestic workers, Pagtakhan says – this could include partnering with educational institutions, offering more competitive wages and benefits or clearer career pathways.
“It puts a lot of stress on small and medium-sized businesses,” he says, “because their planning horizon for employment is a bit more challenging than larger businesses, who can predict that they're going to have a minimum turnover of x per year.”
