Temporary Foreign Workers and Impacts on Apprenticeship

Temporary foreign workers have long been an integral part of Canada’s workforce and will likely continue to play an important role in helping employers meet their ongoing labour market needs. In recent years, our ageing population, low birthrate and predicted skills shortages have prompted a renewed demand for workers from other countries.

Objectives:

• to better understand why employers are hiring temporary foreign workers and how it affects their short-term and long-term human resource planning
• to enhance apprenticeship stakeholders’ knowledge about hiring temporary foreign workers and how apprenticeship training is potentially impacted

As part of its three-year Employer Engagement Strategy, the CAF-FCA is interested in understanding if the increasing use of temporary foreign workers is impacting employers’ decisions about hiring apprentices. As a result, the CAF-FCA is undertaking a preliminary scoping exercise that will provide accurate and timely information about an aspect of this issue that has not, so far, been considered in detail.

Project Status

• The project will be overseen by the CAF-FCA Board of Directors and a Working Group drawn from a cross-section of the apprenticeship community.
• Research will include interviews with key provincial officials and a series of employer focus groups to be held in the spring of 2009.
• A report summarizing the project findings will be released in the fall of 2009.

For more information, please contact:
Emily Arrowsmith,
Project Manager
613-235-4004 ext. 201 or Emily_Arrowsmith@caf-fca.org