New data suggests growing demand for temporary foreign workers in several Canadian industries

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) reports that the number of people approved to work as temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in Canada has doubled compared to five years ago.

According to publicly available ESDC data, in 2023, employers were cleared to hire just less than 240,000 (239,646) TFWs. Five years prior, this number was less than half of the 2023 figure – at 108,988 TFWs in 2018.

This illustrates the continuation of an upward trend – save for 2020, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic – that has persisted since at least 2016. That year, ESDC data indicates that employers were approved to hire just over 90,000 TFWs (90,314).

However, it is important to note that the data presented in this article does not correlate, necessarily, to a higher number of TFWs in Canada. This is because, although the number of TFW approvals is rising, this does not account for employers who later change their minds and decide not to hire a TFW.

Instead, what this data shows is that an increasing number of employers are pursuing the hiring of TFWs to fill vacant jobs in their organizations.