A job listing at a Toronto-area Burger King has prompted observers and experts to wonder whether the temporary foreign workers program is being used to avoid paying higher salaries to Canadians.
On Sept. 25, a Burger King in Mississauga, Ont., posted an opening for a restaurant manager position on the federal government’s online job bank.
The post drew criticism from some social media users, who noted that underneath the posting, a banner reads, “This employer has applied for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to hire a foreign worker to fill labour or skills shortages on a temporary basis.”
This means that the employer, unable to hire a domestic worker for the post, has requested permission from the federal government to open the position up to foreign workers.
A spokesperson for Burger King told Global News that the posting “is directly related to one or more open management positions in the Mississauga area that have not been filled for several months after advertising across employment platforms and not receiving any qualified candidates.”
The job comes with an annual salary offer of $48,000, which works out to be just under $25 an hour, with hours listed as “Day, Evening, Night, Weekend, Early Morning, Morning.”
Global News asked Burger King whether they considered raising the advertised salary to attract more people for the role before applying for a LMIA.
“The wage at which the job was posted is a competitive range amongst quick service restaurants in the Mississauga area, which is based on competitive data and the Franchisee’s experience in hiring in this market,” the spokesperson said in response.
There’s nothing illegal about what Burger King is doing, and no rules are being broken.
It comes amid growing scrutiny on the Temporary Foreign Worker program and growing concerns about whether access to less expensive labour through the program can hurt the potential for wage growth in communities.
Matthew Green, the labour critic of the federal NDP, told Global News, “This case is yet another example of decades of abuse that highlights how the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program is being exploited by industries to source cheap labour, suppressing wages for Canadian workers. Employers are using the TFW program not as a short-term solution, but as a way to avoid offering higher wages that would attract and retain local workers.”
Global News also reached out to the Conservatives with questions.
In response, the Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office sent a quote from a press conference he did in August, saying: “I challenge Canadian business to hire Canadian workers first and I challenge the government to end the chaos in the temporary foreign worker program, bring the numbers down, and allow Canadians to get good solid paying jobs that will give them enough money to buy an affordable home and food in safe neighborhoods.”
Employment and Social Development Canada did not comment on this specific case due to privacy concerns, but added that it had a strict criteria for assessing LMIA applications.
“Employers seeking to hire temporary foreign workers must always demonstrate that they cannot find Canadians or permanent residents to meet their labour needs. This is a last resort program for employers. There are also national minimum advertising standards for employers who want to hire temporary foreign workers,” a spokesperson for ESDC told Global News.
The agency said employers must report on their efforts to recruit or interview Canadian citizens and permanent residents. They added that an LMIA application is no guarantee that a positive LMIA will be granted.
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“As part of the LMIA approval process, the federal government requires proof that Franchisees have advertised for at least four weeks to show that efforts have been made to fill the position locally. In this case, they have far exceeded that requirement. The role continues to be available and open to all applicants,” Burger King said in its statement to Global News.
The posting on the job bank indicates that the Burger King salary is slightly higher than the median wage for similar positions across Canada, which is around $22 an hour.
According to the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN), the living wage for the Greater Toronto Area is $25.05 per hour.
Should employers have to try raising salaries?
Manan Gupta, a registered Canadian immigration consultant based in Brampton, Ont., said the practice of employers listing jobs and seeking foreign workers isn’t a surprise.
“Some employers advertise [jobs] for the bare minimum period so they can qualify to apply for an LMIA,” Gupta said.
He added, “It has become a tool to exploit both Canadian and foreign workers. Unfortunately, this abuse is not going away.”
Gupta said what he describes as misuse of the system is bigger than just one employer or one sector. He pointed to a nexus between “greedy employers” and “shady immigration consultants.”
Christopher Worswick, an economist at Carleton University, said economists have been concerned that the temporary foreign workers program gives employers permission to rely on cheap labour.
“In the absence of a temporary foreign worker program, normally the firm would have to decide to reapply or re-advertise at a higher wage, or maybe do something else, like hire a different type of worker, invest in new technology, capital equipment,” he said.
“The existence of a temporary foreign worker program sort of short-circuits that process.”
He said the reliance on foreign workers can also lead to abuse of those immigrant workers who have little choice but to accept low-paying jobs with little power to negotiate with employers who their visas depend on.
“It’s not like you can walk across the street and work for a similar restaurant in a similar role at a higher wage. The tying of the worker to the job is especially problematic,” he said.
Worswick said the reliance of employers on the program not only slows wage growth but can actually lower wages.
“You’d actually expect lower wages in general for jobs where this was an option. Employers could advertise at a slightly lower wage, knowing that that raises the probability of failure in their search within Canada because they’re advertising a lower wage than they might otherwise,” he said.
Worswick said economists use the term “market-clearing wage rate” for such instances.
“If you’re consistently advertising at a wage at which there’s vacancies, then that suggests that that wage isn’t the market-clearing wage. You’ve set the wage too low in your advertising. You should raise that up until you get someone qualified applying,” he said.
Max Roy, vice president of Restaurants Canada, said the hospitality sector needs foreign workers.
“Temporary foreign workers represent about 3 per cent of our workforce for the industry across Canada. But it’s a very important 3 per cent. Two-thirds of the temporary foreign workers are actually cooks. And without cooks, you just don’t have a restaurant,” he said.
In August, the federal government announced it was introducing restrictions to the TWF program.
The government said it will refuse applications for low-wage temporary foreign workers in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher. The Greater Toronto Area, of which Mississauga is a part, has an unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent.
A low-wage job is defined as one that pays below the median hourly wage in the province where the job is located.
For employers, there will be a cap of 10 per cent of employees coming from the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program and a reduction of maximum duration of employment from two years to one, according to the Employment and Social Development Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the program has helped the economy recover in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, but with inflation slowing down and employment levels up compared to before, the country no longer needs as many temporary foreign workers.
“We need Canadian businesses to invest in training and technology and not increasing their reliance on low-cost foreign labour,” he said.
“It’s not fair to Canadians struggling to find a good job, and it’s not fair to those temporary foreign workers, some of whom are being mistreated and exploited.”
The Burger King job posting was posted a day before the changes went into effect.
Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC, said this was one of the reasons productivity in Canada was lagging.
“We simply have too many workers working in low-paying industries. And if companies have an unlimited supply of very cheap labor, they will not invest in capital, they will not improve the productivity. And that’s one of the reasons why productivity in Canada is lagging behind,” Tal said.
Worswick said the TFW program needs to be done away with entirely.
Instead, he said the government should issue open work permits to foreign workers.
“It would be much better if we went back to a world where we admit medium to high-skilled immigrants in large numbers and then let them work where they want. Don’t tell them they’re tied to one employer, which is what we typically do in the temporary foreign worker program.”
Matthew Green of the NDP proposed something similar.
“Workers should arrive with landed status, preventing exploitation and ensuring fair treatment. Temporary workers in Canada should be regularized, granting them the rights they deserve, which would stop employers from using the TFW program to suppress wages,” he said.
Restaurants Canada recommends implementing a “matching and training program.”
“If you’re going to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers, fine. But please help us find those individuals within Canada that don’t have a job and would be willing to work and learn on onsite,” Max Roy of Restaurants Canada said.
Tal said that while restaurants may feel the pinch in the short term, this move could improve productivity in the long run.
“You have to innovate. You have to think about different menus. You have to think about different ways of attracting people while employing less people or paying them a bit more.”