CANADIAN IMMIGRATION NEWS

Immigrants sought to fill shortages in Canadian food industry

Monday, 3 November 2008

The food industry in Ontario has been lobbying the Government hard to let it bring in more immigrants on work permits.

By 2015, the food service industry will need 181,000 more workers, and immigrants brought in on short-term work permits have plugged many of the gaps in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan already.

In Alberta alone, the number of temporary foreign workers, to fill such jobs as construction work, fast food counter help and hotel maids, has already zoomed past the number of immigrants brought in as permanent residents.

"We need to stop saying all we need is engineers and doctors" who've been through the points system screening, said Justin Taylor, vice-president for labour and taxation at the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA). "We don't need doctors working in quick-service restaurants."

38 per cent of restaurants and fast-food places told the association this summer that they couldn't fill one or two positions, said Taylor

Immigration and the foreign worker policy are vital to rescuing the $50 billion food service industry, the CRFA has reported to the Federal Government. The recommendations included more temporary foreign workers, ways to keep the trained temporary workers already here and an immigration policy focused on labour shortages.

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