Changes to temporary foreign worker program will hurt workers and province, experts say

Migrant workers don’t need to be shown the door, they need better protections
By Yumna Iftikhar, theindependent.ca

A local migrant workers’ rights advocate says Canada’s scaled back temporary foreign worker program dehumanizes migrant workers and will further harm those in Newfoundland and Labrador already facing precarity and exploitation.

Instead of telling migrant workers in this province to go home, the government should focus on protecting their fundamental rights, says Adi Khaitan, an organizer with Newfoundland and Labrador-based Migrant Action Centre.

“[The government is] essentially telling you we don’t need you anymore. So, you now have to uproot your lives and leave. And you do not get to contest it, and you no longer get to live here.”

On Aug. 26, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced changes to Canada’s temporary foreign worker program amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment from those blaming newcomers for rising unemployment rates and the lack of affordable housing.

The Liberals are shortening employment permits for migrant workers, restricting permits in regions with unemployment rates greater than six per cent, and reducing the number of temporary foreign workers that employers can hire.

Ottawa says there will be exceptions for seasonal food and agriculture, construction, and healthcare workers.

Trudeau says the changes will curb national unemployment, which jumped to 6.4 per cent in August. The unemployment rate among newcomers, according to the Bank of Canada, is 11.6 per cent.

Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser, meanwhile, has said he’s banking on the changes to “potentially reduce the pressure on tens of thousands of housing units across the country.”

Changes won’t benefit province, says prof

Tony Fang, an economics professor and labour economics researcher at Memorial University, says that while the changes might have positive economic benefits for more populated provinces like Ontario, they will restrain population growth in Newfoundland and Labrador. “We don’t have [the] same worries and concerns compared to large urban centres.”

According to Statistics Canada, more than half of immigrants who land in Newfoundland and Labrador choose to leave the province within five years.

“Even despite healthy population growth in the last couple years, largely driven by immigration,” Fang said, Newfoundland has one of the lowest immigration rates in the country.

From 2016 to 2021, among Atlantic provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador experienced the least amount of growth through immigration. During that period, just 0.3 per cent of all landed immigrants in Canada moved to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Fang says the province must focus on retaining migrant workers. “We have a vast amount of land and natural resources in this province, but we have a relatively very small population.

“Atlantic Canadians not only appreciate the economic contribution but also [the] social and cultural contribution of immigrants,” he adds.

Populations are declining across the province, even in some of the province’s larger communities. In its 2021 census Statistics Canada found fewer inhabitants in 266 of the 372 communities than five years earlier.

Mount Pearl saw a 2.8 per cent decline, Corner Brook’s population fell by 2.4 per cent, and Happy Valley-Goose Bay experienced a 0.9 per cent decline between 2016 and 2021.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s average age, 45.5, is also higher than Canada’s national average of 41.7 years.

By 2033, the average age of seniors in the province is projected to increase from 24.4 per cent in 2023 to 29.7 per cent. Meanwhile, the population of youth aged 15 to 29 is projected to drop from 16 per cent in 2023 to 15.3 per cent.

Fang says it’s essential that the province continue to hire temporary foreign workers in areas where workers are limited and the population is declining.

The province’s unemployment rate sits at 9.6 per cent, above Ottawa’s new six per cent ceiling for the temporary foreign worker program. But Fang says the government is failing to consider the reasons behind high unemployment rates in certain sectors.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s higher unemployment rate “is a little bit inflated,” he explains, “because of the seasonal employment in many of our industries such as tourism and hospitality, agriculture, and fishery.

“The unique setup of the employment insurance (EI) program allows people to work for three to four months and then receive EI benefits for the remaining period of the year, [when] they would be categorized as unemployed. Given these benefits, there is little incentive or interest for them to pick up low-wage employment even though those jobs are available to them.”

That, says Fang, in part “explains the co-existence of the high unemployment rate and high vacancies [at] the same time. For example, 62 per cent of employers in NL reported hiring difficulties in 2021 according to our employer survey, when the unemployment rate ran high at 13.1 per cent.”

The problem is even more serious in rural and remote regions of the province, where aging populations are more prevalent, Fang explains.

Another major factor in the province’s higher unemployment rate and its need for outside workers is the “skill mismatch,” he adds, explaining “we have many jobs that local workers cannot do or are unwilling to do.” In information technology and skilled trades, he says, 65 per cent of employers reported worker shortages. While in low-wage production or service jobs, 43 per cent reported shortages.

Read full article at theindependent.ca