Canada PR for Temporary Workers Through CEC & PNP | Canada Immigration

According to Statistics Canada research, temporary foreign workers in Canada are increasingly utilizing economic immigration programs—most frequently the federal Canadian Experience Class (CEC) and Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP)—to get permanent resident status.

The Statistical and Demographic Services Agency notes in its most recent report that “within the economic class, the PNP and the CEC have emerged as the primary immigration pathways for work permit holders, while the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSW) and other economic programs such as the Caregiver programs and Quebec selection have diminished in importance.”

Analysts Yuqian Lu and Feng Hou note in Foreign Workers In Canada: Differences In The Transition To Permanent Residency Across Work Permit Programs that by the end of 2022, over 955,000 temporary foreign workers who obtained their first work permits between 2006 and 2020 will have transitioned to permanent residency.

Eighty-six percent of those who obtained their first work permit between 2006 and 2010 did so to get permanent status through economic immigration schemes. However, 93% of people who obtained their first work permit between 2016 and 2020 did so via economic programs to obtain permanent residency.

Further Details

However, the experts from Statistics Canada advise against reading too much into this trend because they believe that the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions may have had some influence on the more recent arrivals’ altered approach to obtaining permanent status.

They observe that “special measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic when economic immigration was primarily processed through the CEC likely influenced the immigration pathways of the 2016-to-2020 cohort.”

The proliferation of the Post-Graduate Work Program (PGWP) and the increase in the number of spouses and common-law partners of skilled workers and overseas students are major factors contributing to the surge in the use of economic programs to get permanent residency.

According to the analysts, “their shares among work permit holders transitioning to permanent residency increased significantly, from 29% in the 2006–2010 cohort to 73% in the 2016–2020 cohort.”

According to a different Statistics Canada report, immigrants are now holding a greater proportion of professional positions than ever before, as well as lower-level jobs that Canadians are hesitant to perform.

According to Garnett Picot and Hou’s study, “Immigration and the Shifting Occupational Distribution in Canada, 2001 to 2021,” during those 20 years, immigrants progressively took up lower-level employment across the nation.

The researchers state that “the results of this study indicate that the role of immigrant workers in low-skilled occupations has increased.” “They filled some of the low-skilled jobs that would have previously been held by Canadian-born workers, along with temporary foreign workers.”

Immigrants Taking More Entry-Level and Professional Jobs

Over those two decades, Canadian workers shifted away from lower-skilled employment, creating an environment that was ideal for immigrants looking for work and expecting to get permanent status through economic immigration schemes.

“There was a 500,000 decrease in employment in lower-skilled occupations between 2001 and 2021. According to Picot and Hou, while employment for Canadian-born workers fell by 860,000 due to a significant shift out of this skill level, employment for temporary foreign workers and immigrants surged by 360,000 in these lower-skilled jobs.

As a result, temporary foreign workers and immigrants partially replaced Canadian-born workers who left lower-skilled positions. The group with the lowest skill level, laborers, showed a similar pattern. While temporary foreign workers and immigrants made up a larger portion of the labor force, the number of workers who were born in Canada decreased.

That tendency may indicate that companies are largely turning to immigrants as a low-cost labor source, but that isn’t the whole story. Additionally, the number of immigrants to Canada occupying well-paying professional jobs is rising.

According to the researchers, “During those 20 years, occupations at the professional skill level showed the fastest employment growth in Canada, with occupations at the managerial and technical skill levels close behind.”

“Those who moved into professional positions were more likely to be immigrants than workers who were born in Canada. Nonetheless, in contrast to people who were born in Canada, their propensity to hold technical or managerial positions remained mostly unchanged.

Between 2001 and 2021, the proportion of immigrant workers in professional occupations increased by over 92.4%, from 543,800 to 1,046,200, compared to a more moderate growth of 30.3% among Canadian workers in the same occupations, from 1,885,000 to 2,456,500. The researchers observed that “total employment increased by 18% over the 20 years.”

With a 48% increase, professional jobs grew the fastest. The second-highest increase rate was seen in managerial positions, up 36%, and employment in technical vocations, up 31%. Conversely, there was an 11% decline in employment for lower-skilled positions.