Temporary foreign workers in Canada: are they really filling labour shortages?

The goal of a temporary foreign worker (TFW) program is to accommodate shortages of labour that otherwise would cause wages to rise substantially or possibly stop production because of the difficulty of finding resident workers. Over the past decade, the Canadian government relaxed several of the conditions to obtain a Labour Market Opinion (LMO), an application to hire TFWs proving that there exist labour shortages that domestic workers cannot fill. In 2013, following a couple of cases that might have involved losses of job opportunities for Canadian residents, the government reversed some of these changes. This paper examines two questions raised by these modifications. Firstly, did easier access to TFWs adversely affect resident workers' employment? Secondly, if so, are the recent changes adequate or could other policy changes make Canada's TFW program more efficient?

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