Report Shows B.C. Most Affected by Changes in Foreign Workers Prog.

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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A C.D. Howe Institute report released on Thursday has highlighted that several key changes to the temporary foreign worker program allowed employers to hire from abroad easily in recent years and consequently led to an increase in unemployment rates in B.C. and Alberta. The report authored by Simon Fraser University public policy professor, Dominique Gross, was titled ‘Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada: Are They Really Filling Labour Shortages?’

The report mainly pointed out that low-skilled workers with some high school education were the most affected by the changes. It was mentioned that a change to the program between 2007 and 2010 sharply increased the unemployment levels by 4.8 percentage points in B.C. and 3.1 percentage points in Alberta. The reason for the difference was B.C.’s much higher unemployment rate for construction labourers during that time period. In order to scale the effect on unemployment, Gross equated rates in B.C. and Alberta with provinces that did not have easier access to temporary foreign workers. Additionally, there was a comparison with Saskatchewan and Newfoundland as well, which represented other resource-dependent economies.

In the report, Gross stated that “there was no obvious shortage of labour, especially of workers with low skills levels, in the two western provinces … and making it easier for employers there to access TFWs did increase the unemployment rate among domestic workers.” It was added that “this suggests that … by lowering employers’ constraints on hiring TFWs, the federal government reduced the incentives for employers to search for domestic workers to fill job vacancies.”