Canada to let foreign students stay and work to fill labor shortage

An increasing number of international students are on campuses across Canada. REUTERS

To quickly fill over a million job vacancies, Canada is offering foreign students with expiring temporary status the chance to work and be in a better position to qualify for permanent residency.

Starting this summer, former international students currently in the country with a post-graduation work permit expiring between January and December 2022 can apply for an additional open work permit of up to 18 months, the government announced.

“We are working on a simplified and expeditious process, and details will be made available in the weeks ahead,” said Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), at a media event in Saint John, New Brunswick.

“This additional open work permit will allow applicants to continue contributing to the Canadian economy, helping address our labour shortage while gaining valuable work experience and preparing their Express Entry profiles.”

The move is part of the government’s ongoing strategy to fill the country’s labor shortages, which grew during the pandemic, according to the Toronto Star.

According to Statistics Canada, international student enrollment fell by nearly 17 percent, from 638,960 in 2019 to 530,540 in 2020. Last year, Canada welcomed 450,000 new international students, according to IRCC.

According to Global Affairs Canada, foreign students contributed almost $22 billion to the Canadian economy in 2018 and supported about 170,000 jobs in 2016.

Some of the announced policy changes will take place in the summer, include:

• applicants will no longer be required to remain in Canada throughout the time their application is being processed
• applicants who apply for an open work permit while waiting for their permanent residence application to be finalized will be able to get work permits valid until the end of 2024. This will ensure that all permanent residence applications will be finalized before applicants will need to apply to extend their temporary status again
• to support family reunification, immediate family members who are outside Canada and were included in a principal applicant’s permanent residence application will be eligible for their own open work permit

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) earlier this month said 55 percent of small businesses are experiencing labor shortages. And after recently surveying 1,200 entrepreneurs and 3,000 members of the working-age population, the Business Development Bank of Canada also found that more than a quarter of Canadian employers are having a hard time retaining their employees.

Among the hardest hit sectors are the trucking industry, which estimates a shortage of about 55,000 drivers by the end of 2023; the health care sector, which accounts for nearly one in five job vacancies in Canada; and the resurgent hospitality industry, which has 210,000 fewer employees now than it did in February 2020.

To address these woes, Fraser said Express Entry draws, which had been paused, will soon resume and that invitations for candidates to apply for permanent residence will begin in early July.

IRCC also announced that it has doubled the number of permanent residence decisions made in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.