Rocky Mountain employers in Alberta see major boost in temporary foreign worker approvals

Faced with a pandemic-induced labour shortage, businesses in the Rocky Mountain tourist hot spots of Banff and Canmore, Alta., have been given the green light to dramatically boost the number of temporary foreign workers they hire to fill low-wage positions.

Last year, businesses in the Bow Valley communities were cleared to fill more positions through the federal Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program than at any point since 2015, the earliest year for which data is available. Under the program, employers in Canada can hire foreign workers to fill temporary jobs when qualified Canadians aren't available.

In Canmore, 237 positions were approved, according to data from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). That's more than double the 98 positions approved in 2019, the next-highest year on record. In Banff, that number more than tripled to 454 positions, up from 141 in 2019.

This doesn't mean all approved positions were necessarily filled by temporary foreign workers, but experts say the size of both the requests and the approvals is significant.

"[It's] kind of jaw-dropping," said Jason Foster, an associate professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University in Alberta.

"These numbers parallel some of the numbers we saw in the early 2000s, which is when the big temporary foreign worker boom was in Alberta and Canada."

The trend isn't confined to the Bow Valley or even to Alberta. The federal government has temporarily eased limits on how many temporary foreign workers a business can hire in low-wage positions, and employers across Canada have increasingly made use of the program.

At a national level, the number of temporary foreign worker approvals increased about 70 per cent last year relative to 2019, according to data from ESDC.

This marks a shift in federal practice from 2014, when a backlash against the TFW program prompted Ottawa to overhaul it, setting limits on how many temporary foreign worker positions a business could hire and making it more difficult for them to do so.

Some see the recent changes as a necessary move to help shore up staffing levels post-pandemic, while others view it as a step in the wrong direction for Canada's economy.

The uptick in approvals came after the federal government raised the cap on how many temporary foreign workers a business could hire for low-wage positions, increasing it from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of a company's total workforce.

As of last spring, sectors with "demonstrated labour shortages," including accommodation and food services, can hire up to 30 per cent of their staff through the program.

The government's definition of a low-wage position is one that is below the provincial or territorial median hourly wage. In Alberta, that's $28.85.

In the tourism-driven Bow Valley — where "Help Wanted" signs pepper restaurant windows, and online job boards are pages long — the most common approvals were for cooks, light duty cleaners and food-service supervisors.