International students will again be banned from working more than 20 hours a week
The temporary relaxation period is coming to an end, and students are not too happy about it.
In November 2022, the Canadian government initiated an experiment to lift the cap on working hours for students. It ends in a month — and many involved are already pushing for its extension.
What are we talking about?
International students in Canada are subject to the 20-hour rule: under it, no more than 20 hours per week are allowed to work while studying. From November 15, 2022 to December 31, 2023, international students in Canada who have off-campus work permit on their study permit were not restricted by this rule.
The measure allowed many international students to gain valuable work experience in Canada, and the country's economy, which is recovering from the pandemic, benefited from a surge in the number of workers.
What happens now?
If federal authorities do not issue an update, international students will once again lose the right to work more than 20 hours as of January 1, 2024. Many students and organizations are already calling for an extension of these measures.
James Casey, an analyst with the Canadian Federation of Students, which has more than 530,000 universal students (40 per cent of whom are international), says the 20-hour limit is a harmful practice. First, training is more expensive for international students, and second, they have trouble finding housing:
"Because international students are not given any federal or provincial loans or grants or housing vouchers, they're experiencing disproportionate effects for rising cost of living and housing affordability."
On behalf of many students, Casey is calling on Ottawa to allow full-time work. And the Advocacy group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change has been calling for those changes since 2017.
Alliance chief Sarom Rho says she has been personally opposed to the 20-hour limit ever since foreign student Jobandeep Singh Sandhu was arrested in 2019 for working too many hours. Current and former international students are the largest group of non-permanent residents in the country and a vulnerable one at that.
"We're calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Mark Miller to do the right thing and permanently remove the 20-hour work limit," Rho said.
According to Statistics Canada, university tuition for international students averages CA$ 36,100 for undergraduate students and CA$ 21,100 for master's and graduate students.
