Employers still turning to low-wage foreign workers, even as unemployment rises

Author(s): Lundy, M.

Date: 2024

Resource: The Globe and Mail.

Canadian employers continue to ramp up their recruitment of low-wage workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program this year, a trend at odds with the federal government’s plans to restrict migration to the country.

During the first quarter of 2024, employers received government approval to hire 28,730 people through the low-wage stream of the TFW program, an increase of 25 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). It was the highest quarterly number for such approvals in government records that date to 2016.

Over all, employers were authorized to hire more than 71,000 workers across all streams of the program between January and March – down from the previous quarter but up 13 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

“We’re seeing this incredible growth in the program at the same time as unemployment is just steadily rising,” said Catherine Connelly, a professor at McMaster University and the author of Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. “I’m quite sure that there are [local] people who could fill at least some of these positions.”

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Related Research Areas: Temporary and Gig Workers