Employers hiring foreign workers in 10 agriculture, food processing, and trucking occupations can now skip past a time-consuming step in the work permit process.

Canada is now waiving the advertising requirement for the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) in certain high priority occupations.

In order to get an LMIA, in most cases, employers need to prove that no Canadian was available to take a vacant position before offering it to a foreign worker. They do this by advertising the position for hire across various platforms for up to three months in some cases.

Get help with Canadian work permits

As of March 20, the minimum recruitment requirements for pending and future LMIA applications will be waived for the following 10 occupations:

• Butchers, meat cutters and fishmongers-retail and wholesale (NOC 6331)
• Transport Truck Drivers (NOC 7511)
• Agricultural service contractors, farm supervisors and specialized livestock workers (NOC 8252)
• General Farm Workers (NOC 8431)
• Nursery and Greenhouse Workers (NOC 8432)
• Harvesting labourers (NOC 8611)
• Fish and seafood plant workers (NOC 9463)
• Labourers in food, beverage and associated products processing (NOC 9617)
• Labourers in fish and seafood processing (NOC 9618)
• Industrial butchers and meat cutters, poultry preparers and related workers (NOC 9462)

Truck drivers who are situated in a province that has a Mandatory Entry-Level Training requirement must have the certification in their possession at the time they receive their work permit. Provinces with this requirement include B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

New electronic LMIA application processing

LMIAs can now be emailed to Service Canada. Employers can email their application to the appropriate address based on the immigration stream and job location.

For now, agricultural stream high wage and low wage applications from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon must be sent to the Ontario processing centre.

Need assistance with the Temporary Work Permit application process? Contact wp@canadavisa.com.

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