Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Labour Market Opinion (LMO) Statistics

Foreword

Temporary Foreign Worker Program

The federal government’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) allows eligible foreign workers to work in Canada for an authorized period of time if employers can demonstrate that they are unable to find suitable Canadians/permanent residents to fill the jobs and that the entry of these workers will not have a negative impact on the Canadian labour market.

The TFWP responds to short-term regional, occupational, and sectoral skills and labour demands while protecting employment opportunities for Canadians. Employers can recruit workers into any legal profession and from any source country, subject to employers and workers meeting specified criteria.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC)/Service Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and the Canada Border Services Agency work together to manage and deliver the TFWP.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides a broad legislative framework for CIC’s and HRSDC’s mandates and authorities including the purpose of a labour market opinion (LMO) in consideration of a work permit application as further defined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations. 

Not all temporary foreign workers (TFWs) require an LMO to apply for a work permit. A number of exemptions exist, including those provided for in the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the North American Free Trade Agreement. The decision to issue a work permit rests with CIC. A work permit may not be issued for all TFWs named on a labour market opinion confirmation. To find out more, visit: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/apply-who-nopermit.asp.

Methodology

Labour Market Opinion (LMO) Statistics are derived from HRSDC’s administrative data files on labour market opinion applications. LMOs related to hiring a skilled worker for a permanent position (i.e.: arranged employment opinions) are not included in this publication.

In order to ensure the protection of personal information, cells containing less than 10 cases in a specific category have been suppressed and replaced with the notation "‑‑". Additional cells may also have been suppressed to ensure confidentiality. As a result, components may not sum up to the total indicated.

The numbers appearing in this report will be updated at regular intervals as necessary adjustments to the TFWP’s administrative data files occur over time. For the annual statistics released in March, only the latest two years of information are updated. For the quarterly statistics, all four quarters of the previous year are updated in the June release.

As statistics are updated, previously released statistics are archived and made available for reference purposes, as originally released. The annual statistics are archived in March and the quarterly statistics in June. The release date specified indicates when statistics were last updated for a particular table.

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