What is a LMIA?
LMIA stands for Labour Market Impact Assessment. It is the opinion provided by ESDC to the officer which enables the officer to determine whether the employment of the foreign worker is likely to have a positive or negative impact on the labour market in Canada. It is a document that an employer in Canada must obtain before hiring a foreign worker. If the LMIA is positive, then this means that the employer may hire a foreign worker due to the fact that there is not any Canadian who will or can fill that job.
Before 2013, employers did not have to pay a thing when applying for LMIA’s, an application fee of $275.00 was introduced and in the span of one year has tripled in price.The employers will have to pay a fee of $1000.00 per position requesting an LMIA. This affects employers in such a way that they will be held accountable for the promises the make in the initial application. The more expensive cost of bringing someone over will make the employers more eager to find Canadian workers. The accommodation and food service fields are largely affected by the 10% cap on TFWs. They must lay off a large percent of their workforce in order to comply with the cap. LMIA applications have gotten much more complicated and require a lot more documentation and statistics. It has gotten to the point that they must give detailed reasoning as to why any Canadian that has applied is not suitable for the job. This is important to you because it makes the employers more reluctant to go through the LMIA process. Only employers who are seeking to fill immediate, acute labour shortages in high-demand positions or for very specific projects might be willing to go through this process.
