Development Department: Employers and Worker Program

development department: It's all part of the government's effort to address oversight concerns with the temporary foreign worker program flagged last year by auditor general Michael Ferguson, according to Vancouver Courier. Employers often hired temporary foreign workers without first demonstrating they had exhausted all other options for finding local workers, and applications were frequently approved without being challenged, Ferguson found. Since the start of the year, roughly 1,600 employers have been flagged as high-risk employers and selected for inspections by the Employment and Social Development Department, with more than 1,340 on-site inspections launched and in various stages of completion.article continues below Trending Stories Couple on work visa stranded after their car stolen along with passports, all their possessions West Vancouver's 'Real Housewife' ordered to pay retroactive child support Squamish chief launches bid for mayor of VancouverP!nk hikes Capilano trail, thanks Vancouver for being 'damned awesome'That's more than seven times the number of on-site inspections conducted during the same period in 2016-17. He also found enforcement officers lacked access to sufficient data to ensure employers were being honest about local labour availability, and rarely conducted on-site inspections. The federal public accounts committee, which held its own hearings to ensure Ferguson's concerns were addressed, also found that while the number of temporary foreign workers has declined, oversight of employers using the program remains not sufficient. Those inspections that did go ahead were flawed, since employers always had prior warning, Ferguson concluded. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.