So there's this thing in Canada called the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. It's gotten a lot of press lately: here, here, here. Basically, under certain conditions where the business claims that they can't find anybody to fill a position, they can bring in people "temporarily" to fill the position, as long as there's nobody in Canada who wants it. Makes some sense if there's a scarcity of skilled labour in some places, or some other specialized circumstances.
It's being used to fill jobs at Subway, McDonalds, etc. And there's been an uproar lately, so the federal minister responsible has suspended the program for the restaurant business, pending a review, which could take any amount of time.
Here's the article that says pretty much what I think about it: Foreign workers skew the market - Supply and demand: Where have all the true capitalists gone?
Excerpt: (emphasis mine)
The point is that people are using this to fill unskilled labour jobs. Which perverts the whole idea of supply and demand. As long as you don't have full employment (nowhere does), if you advertise $30/hour to flip burgers, you WILL have more applicants than you need. The only reason they can't get people is they're not willing to pay more for what they want. As the article said, supply and demand works for labour markets as well. If there's a shortage, you pay more. But this program is being used for effectively infinite supply. Which means depressed wages.
Not good.
And this isn't all. It gets worse. People in these jobs are often "asked" to work longer hours (aka unpaid overtime) because if they get fired, they get shipped home. Or anything else really, since again, they are hired at the whim of the owner. So it's slave-labour-esque. So it's effectively bad for them too. The only reason they do it at all (beyond the crap wages being way better than where they originally lived) is that after a certain number of hours worked, they can apply to be permanent residents ("really" immigrated). I have no problem with that part, but obviously there are a few problems before that. Again, from the same article:
It's the unskilled part that's the real horror here. You can ALWAYS find somebody if you're willing to pay enough. People will leave SKILLED jobs if you're willing to pay enough. If you aren't, then you're trying to distort the labour market.
So ya, this is rant-ish, but it's a current event in Canada. And there's enough here for people in other countries to relate to as well.
It's being used to fill jobs at Subway, McDonalds, etc. And there's been an uproar lately, so the federal minister responsible has suspended the program for the restaurant business, pending a review, which could take any amount of time.
Here's the article that says pretty much what I think about it: Foreign workers skew the market - Supply and demand: Where have all the true capitalists gone?
Excerpt: (emphasis mine)
The point is that people are using this to fill unskilled labour jobs. Which perverts the whole idea of supply and demand. As long as you don't have full employment (nowhere does), if you advertise $30/hour to flip burgers, you WILL have more applicants than you need. The only reason they can't get people is they're not willing to pay more for what they want. As the article said, supply and demand works for labour markets as well. If there's a shortage, you pay more. But this program is being used for effectively infinite supply. Which means depressed wages.
Not good.
And this isn't all. It gets worse. People in these jobs are often "asked" to work longer hours (aka unpaid overtime) because if they get fired, they get shipped home. Or anything else really, since again, they are hired at the whim of the owner. So it's slave-labour-esque. So it's effectively bad for them too. The only reason they do it at all (beyond the crap wages being way better than where they originally lived) is that after a certain number of hours worked, they can apply to be permanent residents ("really" immigrated). I have no problem with that part, but obviously there are a few problems before that. Again, from the same article:
I'm glad this program is getting a review. We should be bringing in X amount of people per year (according to wiki, 280,000 in 2010, which may be fine), giving them permanent resident status so that abuse by employers is difficult, and we should have an honest debate as to how many that should be and why. Come because some element of skilled labour needs people and actually can't find anybody? That would be indicated because wages are skyrocketing in that particular industry. Then bring some in. Industry "claims" they need people because they can't find Canadians for unskilled labour? Let the wages show the real story (this is related to how there's not actually a STEM shortage in Canada or the USA, but that's another story).
It's the unskilled part that's the real horror here. You can ALWAYS find somebody if you're willing to pay enough. People will leave SKILLED jobs if you're willing to pay enough. If you aren't, then you're trying to distort the labour market.
So ya, this is rant-ish, but it's a current event in Canada. And there's enough here for people in other countries to relate to as well.
