Foreign labour may cost Canadians jobs and wages in specific trades and the impact of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program “may be significant” in some markets, according to a department report..“Wage suppression might be occurring in specific sectors and situations,” said.the report Evaluation Of The Temporary Foreign Worker Program, released yesterday..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the report suggested migrant labour costs Canadians jobs and higher pay in construction, trucking, beauty salons, restaurants, fish processing and farming, “where foreign workers are willing to work for lower wages than what a Canadian or permanent resident would consider acceptable.”.“There is no evidence pointing to a risk for job displacement or wage suppression at the national level in Canada,” said Evaluation. “In 2019 temporary foreign workers represented only .5% of the total labour force in Canada.”.“There is however evidence of varying factors affecting unemployment and working conditions in localized labour markets,” wrote staff. “This points to some risk of job displacement or wage suppression in some specific sectors, occupations and regions.”.In the carpentry trade from 2016 to 2018 real wages declined 3% in British Columbia and 9% in Ontario while wages for migrant carpenters grew 1%, wrote researchers. Data on Atlantic fish plants show companies that hired foreigners typically paid labourers $1.03 to $1.69 less per hour than those that hired Canadians..Employers who applied to hire migrants have complained Canadians were not interested in “physical labour,” shift work or repetitive or “uninteresting work.” Companies surveyed by the department said they did not hire locals who applied due to “lack of previous experience” or “lack of work ethic,” while foreigners were rated as being “more reliable,” “more hard-working” and “more likely to stay with the organization after being hired.”.The Temporary Foreign Worker Program was introduced in 1973 for highly skilled labour, but in 2002 it was expanded to include low-skilled workers. The number of migrants hired under the program peaked at 162,400 in 2013..In 2014, the Conservative government capped the number of migrants hired by large employers at 20% of payroll outside of seasonal work like fish processing, imposed a $1,000 fee on permit applications, limited work permits for low skill migrants to a single year and banned the hiring of low wage foreigners for jobs like restaurant help, janitors or labourers in metropolitan areas with an unemployment rate of 6% or more..Overall hiring of migrants subsequently fell 24% to 123,312 by 2020. The number of low-skilled foreigners working in Canada over the period from 2013 to 2020 fell 62%, from 70,841 to 27,023..The employment department in a 2016 Access To Information report estimated migrant hiring lowered Canadian wages by as much as 2%, especially for bar and restaurant staff, hotel clerks and dental assistants. “The number of temporary foreign workers over the period from 2003 to 2012 had a negative effect on occupational wages for a few occupations across the country,” said the report Determinants Of Wages In Canada: An Analysis By Occupation And Province..Matthew Horwood is the Parliamentary Bureau Chief of the Western Standard.mhorwood@westernstandard.news.Twitter.com/@Matt_HorwoodWS
