LMIA stands for Labour Market Impact Assessment. It is the opinion provided by ESDC to the officer which enables the officer to determine whether the employment of the foreign worker is likely to have a positive or negative impact on the labour market in Canada. It is a document that an employer in Canada must obtain before hiring a foreign worker. If the LMIA is positive, then this means that the employer may hire a foreign worker due to the fact that there is not any Canadian who will or can fill that job.
Before 2013, employers did not have to pay a thing when applying for LMIA’s, an application fee of $275.00 was introduced and in the span of one year has tripled in price. The employers will have to pay a fee of $1000.00 per position requesting an LMIA. This affects employers in such a way that they will be held accountable for the promises the make in the initial application. The more expensive cost of bringing someone over will make the employers more eager to find Canadian workers.
LMIA applications have gotten much more complicated and require a lot more documentation and statistics. It has gotten to the point that they must give detailed reasoning as to why any Canadian that has applied is not suitable for the job. This is important to you because it makes the employers more reluctant to go through the LMIA process.
The LMIA looks at a few different categories when processing LMIA applications. You should figure out which category you belong to. These categories include:
- Higher-skilled occupations: high-wage
- Higher-skilled occupations: low-wage
- Lower-skilled occupations: high-wage
- Lower-skilled occupations: low-wage
ESDC will not process LMIA applications for certain positions where the employment rate is at six percent or higher. There is a cap on the amount of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) who may be employed in low-wage positions. This cap is 10 percent of TFWs.
What Is The Expedited Process?
Some temporary foreign workers can benefit from much quicker processing times. The expedited processing times would only take 10 business days to obtain your LMIA. To be eligible for this, you must meet certain requirements/criteria.
- Shortest Duration Occupations
- includes jobs where the employment runs a maximum of 120 calendar days or less
- one must also be receiving a pay of a median or above median wage for the specific province or territory they will be in
2. Highest Paid Occupations
- this only applies to the top 10 percent of wages in the province or territory
- this job usually only applies to highly skilled, professional jobs; such as top level managerial jobs, senior executives, and physicians.
3. Highest Demand Occupations
- all the skilled and in-demand trades jobs
- however, they must all be median wage or higher for that specific province or territory
- this list is always changing depending on the demand at the time
All in all, in order to obtain an expedited LMIA you must fall into one of the three categories. The three categories are shortest duration occupations, highest paid occupations, and highest demand occupations. All of which must have a wage set to meet or exceed the province or territory’s median wage.
If you are looking at filing your LMIA application, or have further questions, contact us today!