Quebec has announced agreements to assist in the hiring and retention of temporary foreign employees.
The federal government is putting in place measures in Quebec to make it simpler to recruit temporary workers, the province said today.
Following months of discussions, Quebec and the Canadian federal government have agreed to introduce three new measures to assist companies and enterprises dealing with labor shortages. Quebec is the first province to negotiate a deal with Ottawa to address its present labor shortage. Labor shortages in Quebec, which existed pre to the pandemic, have gotten worse in recent months as the economy has recovered.
The following are the three new measures that will be introduced in the next weeks:
- Enhancing the flexibility of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in order to encourage hiring;
- Granting some holders of a Certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ) who are seeking permanent residency in Quebec access to an open work permit;
- Giving a work permit to holders of a CSQ from outside of Quebec who are awaiting permanent residence.
Program for Temporary Foreign Workers
Companies who want to employ foreign workers can now do so at a rate of 10% of their staff. This amount will be raised to 20% in the future.
The increase in the temporary foreign worker limit per place of employment will be applied for specific industries, and certain low-skilled, high-demand jobs will be added to the list of occupations eligible for simplified processing. In a news statement issued today, the Quebec government stated that it will engage with the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail (a provincial consultative organization that brings together labor market players) to determine the areas of activity that would benefit from this policy.
Permanent Residency Applicants with an Open Work Permit
Ottawa also accepted Quebec’s proposal to introduce a provision that would allow certain temporary foreign workers to work in Quebec in the employment of their choice while they wait for permanent residency. Temporary foreign employees might get a bridging open work permit to keep working while waiting for a decision on their permanent residency application. Workers who applied via the province of Quebec, on the other hand, were not eligible for this permission.
Workers with a CSQ in the skilled worker category and a receipt indicating that their application for permanent residence has been accepted by the federal government will be eligible for an open work permit by August 31, 2021. The work permit will be valid for an initial term of 24 months, with the option to renew for another 12 months. It will include a requirement that the workplace remains in Quebec. Regardless of the level of employment held by the primary applicant, the principal applicant’s partner or spouse will be entitled to acquire an open work visa.
Program Plus for International Mobility
Quebec and the federal government have also agreed to launch a new International Mobility Program (IMP) pathway known as IMP+, which would see the issue of 7,000 work permits exempt from the Labor Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to those CSQ holders who are still overseas each year. The IMP+ will allow these people to arrive in Quebec faster, allowing them to fill labor shortages in some important areas of the Quebec economy.
