Foreign Workers: Employer

Foreign Worker Dept: Before this announcement was made, an employer who wanted to hire a foreign worker normally had to offer a salary that was at or above the median wage for the occupation in the area where the foreign worker would be working, according to Winnipeg Free Press. If, after attempting to recruit Canadian residents, no one in the Canadian workforce was willing and able to fill the job, the employer could seek permission to hire a worker from another country. While there were exceptions to this policy, many employers who hired foreign workers had to adhere to this policy and in April, the federal government announced a program designed to reduce the time it takes for businesses to hire foreign workers for jobs in Canada. Known as the "accelerated labour market opinion," this process should cut by weeks the time it takes for foreign workers to come to Canada. The biggest surprise is employers will also now be allowed to hire certain foreign workers at a wage of up to 15 per cent less than the median wage for similar workers in Canada. That was part of Canada's long-standing "Canada first" policy that generally required Canadian employers to look to hire from the domestic workforce before hiring people from abroad. Under this policy, employers had to offer wages at or above the median wage paid to Canadian residents to ensure an employer's failure to find Canadian-based workers was not because it offered uncompetitive wages. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.