Temporary foreign workers hit record levels in B.C.
B.C. businesses are hiring a record number of temporary foreign workers as they struggle to fill jobs.
Those employers are also required to register with the provincial Employment Standards Branch. In 2021, the branch received 2,955 applications from employers. In 2022, it received more than 12,300, over 10,000 of them in the last four months of the year. “The Temporary Foreign Worker Program often places workers in vulnerable positions, at the mercy of their employer,” BC Federation of Labour president Sussanne Skidmore said. “And the same is true of migrant and undocumented workers of all kinds, who play a critical role in key areas of our economy.”
In the period examined by The Tyee, almost 8,000 approved positions were for general farm workers. The second biggest category was cooks. B.C. businesses got the green light to hire nearly 3,000 in the first three quarters of 2022. Food service supervisors came in third place, with more than 2,100 applications.
But recently, Tostenson says, they’ve hit delays. The provincial government brought in new rules in 2020 requiring employers hiring temporary foreign workers to register with the Employment Standards Branch, part of a bill meant to protect rights of those employees. But the recent surge of applications has caught the branch off guard.
Chris Atchison, president of the BC Construction Association, views the numbers with some concern. Construction companies are hurting for workers; his industry projects more than 27,600 job openings in the sector by 2027.“We’ve always said that the temporary foreign worker model in construction should only be used if there is a pathway to permanent residency. We are not a sector that is wanting to bring people in for short periods of time and send them home,” Atchison said.
MOSAIC has called for reforms to the program, Velazquez said, including automatic open work permits for workers in the program and tougher sanctions for employers who break the rules.
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