IRCC extends policy that allows visitors to obtain work permits if they have valid job offers
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced that any foreign national who receives a job offer while in Canada will be able to apply for, and receive, a work permit.
- Set to expire at the end of February, the COVID-era temporary policy has been extended by 2 years, until February 28, 2025.
To be eligible to apply, an applicant looking to benefit from this temporary public policy must
- have valid status in Canada as a visitor on the day they apply
- have a job offer that is supported by a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) or an LMIA-exempt offer of employment
- submit an application for an employer-specific work permit no later than February 28, 2025
- meet all other standard admissibility criteria
Generally, a valid offer is for a job that is:
- full-time and non-seasonal,
- for at least 1 year,
- in a skilled job listed as TEER Category 0, 1, 2 or 3 in the 2021 National Occupational Classification.
A job offer must be in writing, and must set out details of the job they are offering you, such as:
- your pay and deductions
- your job duties
- conditions of employment, like your hours of work.
- A valid job offer is defined as a written offer of a full-time, non-seasonal job for one year or more if you are accepted as a permanent resident and must have a positive or neutral Labour Market Impact Assessment from Employment and Social Development Canada (or the job is LMIA-exempt).
- A LMIA is an application that an employer makes to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) to evaluate if hiring foreign workers will have a positive, neutral or negative impact on the Canadian economy. If ESDC deems the impact is negative, the employer will not be eligible to hire foreign nationals.
- Visitors applying under this policy who held a work permit within the last 12 months will also continue to be able to request interim work authorization to begin working for their new employer more quickly.
- Before this, those applying to work in Canada would typically need to apply for their initial work permit before they came to Canada.
- If they were already in Canada with visitor status when they were approved for a work permit, they would need to leave Canada to be issued their work permit.
Canada’s high number of job vacancies
- The measure was initially introduced to help employers in Canada fill urgent labour shortages when COVID related travel restrictions were in place, making it difficult for newcomers to arrive from abroad.
- Canada is working towards filling job vacancies and reducing the labour shortage. As of January, Canada’s rate of unemployment was at 5%. Statistics Canada data from December 2022, showed there was an overall decrease in the number of vacancies to 848,000 from over one million earlier in the year.
- The country has created 326,000 jobs since September, pushing the number of employed Canadians to more than 20 million for the first time.
