Follow Canadian Immigration and Life in Canada: Due to the rising unemployment rate among young people and unskilled workers in Canada, a think tank has suggested setting an annual cap on the number of Temporary Foreign Workers. Federal Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney stated that the government will carefully consider this implementation to avoid a situation where young Canadians are unemployed while a large number of foreign workers are brought in.
The independent think tank "The Institute for Research on Public Policy" reported that the number of temporary foreign workers in Canada increased to 213,573 last year, nearly 1.5 times higher than the level in 1995. "The trend of increasing temporary foreign workers is concerning, as foreign workers may take jobs from young people just entering the labor market or from lower-skilled Canadians, making it necessary to set an annual intake cap."
Although the overall unemployment rate in Canada has dropped to 6.9%, the youth unemployment rate is as high as 12.9% and has remained elevated since the economic recession. Kenney stated that he has not yet seen the aforementioned report, but will carefully consider this issue in the second phase of reforms. He also indicated that the federal government announced changes to the application process for the temporary foreign worker program in April of this year, increasing application fees and requiring employers to extend the duration for posting job advertisements locally, with the aim of ensuring priority employment rights for Canadian citizens and preventing the abuse of the foreign worker program.