Lack of data collection on TFWs could be deflating wages of Canadians: expert

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – With word today the feds have approved thousands of requests to hire temporary foreign workers at minimum wage, one public policy expert believes the government needs to gather more employment data as other countries do.

Dr. Dominique Gross says the federal government needs to do much better job at monitoring Canada’s labour market.

Without that information, she tells us it’s difficult for the government to know whether there are indeed shortages of workers in certain sectors or if companies are simply looking to get cheap workers.

And even for Canadians who do secure jobs, the influx of temporary foreign workers will inevitably deflate wages for locals.

“It prevents the wage from rising like it would if employers had to search intensively and throughout the whole country for workers,” says Gross.

Gross released a study last month that indicates this province’s unemployment rate accelerated due to the temporary foreign worker program.

“What I found was that for some occupations, it was clearly necessary to have the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, but for others it was not that clear,” she explains. “In fact, it generated some acceleration of the unemployment rate in 2008 until 2010.”