Visa for everyone: getting a work visa to Canada has become easier

If you find a job in Canada, you have a much better chance of getting a permanent residence permit, because temporary workers get more points in immigration programs, many special programs are open to them and new ones are constantly appearing. Fortunately, it's now easier to get that coveted work visa. The new measures affect all workers: high-wage, low-wage, seasonal, and so on.

Reasons for change

The situation in Canada is such that after the pandemic there is both low unemployment and many job openings. The number of job openings in Canada reached a historic peak in the second half of 2021, with about a million jobs open. According to the Minister of Immigration, there are about 900,000 job openings in March 2022, meaning there aren't enough residents to fill all the jobs.

On the other hand, finding a job in Canada if you are abroad is not the easiest task. Although Canadian provinces create many new immigration programs specifically for those who have found a job in Canada or are already working in Canada, few have provided for any simplified employment.

Now it will be easier for everyone. The measures taken by the government are not aimed at the employees themselves, but at Canadian employers, so it does not matter what country you are from and what position you apply for. It will make it easier for companies to hire foreigners, which means they will do it more actively, because there are not enough workers. The rest is in your hands!

Temporary workers in Canada are all workers who come to the country with a work visa. That is, you have found a job, but are not yet granted permanent residency, which means you are considered a temporary resident. Temporary work entitles you to apply for immigration under a large number of programs. In this case, you get a permanent residence permit, and already become a permanent resident.

Some of the measures adopted by the government have already come into force since April 4, when the changes were published, and some will be introduced on April 30.

Changes from April 4, 2022

The first measure: the duration of seasonal work has been increased. Previously, when an employee took a seasonal job, he could work for up to 180 days, but now this period has been increased to 270 days. This is more of a plus for employers, because for the employee the number of days will probably not play a big role. Seasonal work is usually not suitable for immigration, because programs that require a work contract usually have a condition that the work must be permanent.

So for the seasonal worker here except that there is more time in the country, perhaps to someone it will help to find a permanent job, and you can earn more money, for example, to show then for immigration on the usual programs, which do not require employment, but the funds in the accounts there need.

By the way, they also lifted the limit on the number of low-wage seasonal workers, so if you are considering any job options in Canada, the chances of getting a seasonal job definitely go up. But for immigration it is still better to look for permanent options.

The second measure is already more interesting. The labour market impact assessment is temporarily extended to 18 months instead of 9. The labour market impact assessment, or LMIA, is issued by an employer for hiring a foreign employee. It is a document that proves that the company has not found a suitable applicant among Canadian citizens and residents.

LMIA is one of the main barriers to employment, because not all companies want to spend time and money on registration. And yet many employers take this step and look for workers abroad.

The next change is that high-paid employees who participate in the Global Talent Stream will be able to work in Canada for up to 3 years. Previously, the maximum length of employment was 2 years. The Global Talent Stream allows innovative companies in Canada to accelerate the hiring of foreign qualified applicants, who are offered salaries starting at $80,000 CAD per year.

Changes from April 30, 2022

The measures that will come into force on April 30 are even more interesting. First, the restriction on hiring foreign workers in low-paying positions is increasing. Most companies can now only take on 10% of workers from abroad; the other 90% of the staff must be Canadian residents. Now the threshold has been increased to 20% for all employers, and 30% for certain in-demand sectors.

There are seven sectors that are in demand:

• food production;
• manufacture of wood products;
• production of furniture and related products;
• hotel and restaurant business;
• construction;
• hospitals and care facilities for the elderly and sick.

The 30% limit will be in effect for 1 year.

This is just great news, because now companies that were willing to hire foreigners but were limited to this 10% limit will be able to take on more people. We have a shining example of hiring in one of the priority sectors. This is interview with a girl, Lena, who, while in Belarus, found a job in Canada as a caregiver in 1 hour and moved to the country with her whole family.

The second innovation is the elimination of the automatic denial policy in LMIAs for regions where the unemployment rate is above 6%. Now there is such a restriction that companies located in cities with unemployment rates above 6% cannot hire foreigners for low-paying positions in the hotel and restaurant business and retail trade. They are automatically denied a labor market impact assessment.

Since April 30, this will no longer be the case, but employers will still have to confirm that they have not found suitable candidates among citizens and residents of Canada, the LMIA itself is not canceled.

In another measure, Canada will organize a consultative roundtable of up to 25 people. They will include ministers, employers, representatives of unions and migrant worker support organizations. They will decide how to make the temporary worker program more effective for the workers themselves, companies and Canadian cities and provinces. The meetings will be held twice a year for three years, with the first meeting in June of this year.

It is hard to say yet how effective they will be, but perhaps it will lead to some additional measures that will be useful to foreign job seekers. The first session of the roundtable will focus on the housing issue, specifically the conditions of housing that employers provide to foreign employees.

Other changes

These were key points that the government accepted, but not all. They are also promising to speed up LMIAs so workers can come to Canada faster. Somehow the government website mentioned this in passing, separate from the key measures, although the decision is also very important.

And the government is investing in job creation, in training, in improving working conditions, in funding organizations that help foreign workers in the country, and in increasing protection for those workers, which is actually not unimportant either. I can't say anything about the results of that investment, but Canada certainly takes worker protection seriously. We have an interview with two girls who were working on a Canadian farm and had their rights violated by their employer.

Most in-demand positions

I think you've noticed that a lot of the new measures focus on low-wage workers. They're really the ones with the biggest staffing shortages. Last year there were about a million vacancies, and more than 400,000 of them were in just four areas: hospitality, health care and social assistance, retail, and manufacturing.

They are often looking for people in medium— and low-skilled positions for which minimal or no training is necessary. Also, according to statistics, more than half of all employees who come to Canada from abroad every year come for agricultural work. It turns out that the country needs specialists with low qualifications more than anything else. But not everyone wants to look for such work.

I think that if you are looking for a job in Canada for the purpose of further immigration, it is worth considering everything, even some positions that you would not work in your country. Many immigration programs require only a work contract to qualify for permanent residency, while others require six months or a year of work. When you have a permanent residence permit, you will live in Canada for some time and understand the local labor market, you can look for work in your field, or retrain in another, but the cost of training for you will be 2-3 times lower than for foreign students.

Bottom line

To summarize, in general all these measures mean that Canadian companies were able to take more people from abroad, it became easier for them to arrange LMIA for employees, that is, more foreign workers were able to get jobs in the company and subsequently get permanent residency. So, if you haven't yet decided to look for a job in Canada, or have been putting it off, now is a good time to start monitoring job openings.

Help with immigration

To get a job in Canada, you have to have a Canadian-formatted resume; they won't consider you without it. You can find examples online or contact us and get a professionally written resume by all standards.

We are not looking for a job, because paid employment is forbidden in Canada. Employers, by the way, do not have the right to demand any payment from you, everything is made at their expense. When you find a company and conclude a work contract, you can contact us again to apply for a work visa.