Canada’s Regions Blocking Low-Wage LMIAs from Apr 4

In August 2024, the Canadian government made an announcement. They decided to pause processing applications for the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).

The federal government finally published its quarterly list of census metropolitan areas (CMAs). where people with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher will not be able to get low-wage Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs).

What is an LMIA?
An LMIA is a legal document issued by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). This allows Canadian employers to hire a foreign worker to fulfil their business needs. An LMIA also ensures that hiring a foreign worker will not negatively impact the Canadian labor market.

Rather it confirms that there is a need for a foreign worker to fill a particular position. Hence, without an LMIA, no employer will be able to hire any foreign national under low – wage TFWP, nor any foreign worker can renew their permit under the mentioned pathway.

Which CMAs are ineligible as of April 4?
24 CMAs has been identified by the Canadian government that has an unemployment rate of 6% and above. These regions listed below will halt low-wage LMIA applications for the next three months. The government will update the list in every 3 months and next update date would be 11th of July 2025.

What is a CMA?
A CMA is geographical area that is made up one or more neighbouring towns. These surround a key population center, which is denoted as the ‘core’. To be designated as a CMA, it must have a total population of at least 100,000, out of which 50,000 or more must live in the ‘core’.

How to identify if a ‘work location’ is in a CMA?
To determine whether your job falls under one of these CMAS:

Enter postal code of your work location in the search bar of Census of Population;
Note if “Census metropolitan area / Census agglomeration” is appearing as a result on the Geography search results page:
Your application remains eligible even if the location is not mentioned.
Your application will be still eligible, if ‘Census agglomeration’ appears
If it displays ‘Census metropolitan area’, then first check if it exists in the table above; if yes then your application is not going to be processed for the next 3 months.

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