Alberta sweetens pot for foreign workers

By Anastasia Silva

EDMONTON, AB--Alberta has made changes to its foreign workers nominee program, designed to draw more workers from other countries to the province.

As of July 1, Alberta's program is referred to as the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program (AINP). The program now allows family members of employer-sponsored workers to also apply for permanent resident visas through Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

The AINP is designed to speed up the application and approval process for skilled and semi-skilled foreign workers, making it faster and easier for them to become permanent residents.

Under the AINP, Alberta employers that nominate foreign skilled or semi-skilled workers can fast-track through the nomination process. The AINP has also cut approval time for permanent resident status from as long as six years down to six to 18 months.

Changes to the PNP in Alberta were prompted by the province's low unemployment rate of 3.3. per cent due to increased productivity in the oil and construction industries. That has resulted in a rapidly growing economy.

As of June 2008, Alberta's unemployment rate was the lowest in the country, with B.C. a close second at 4.5 per cent in the western and Prairie Provinces. Compare that to Ontario's unemployment rate of 6.7 per cent and Nova Scotia's 7.7 per cent.

Although Albertans and Canadians from other provinces are given priority by the Government of Alberta, the province can't fulfill its labour market needs from within the country, says Jennifer Raimundo, public affairs officer, Alberta Employment and Immigration.

"Alberta needs more workers than are available by developing our existing pool of people," says Raimundo.

"Despite maximizing the employment of Albertans and workers coming from other provinces, we are predicting a potential shortfall of more than 100,000 workers over the next 10 years," she says. "[Because] we have more jobs than people to fill them, we have to look outside our borders."

The AINP, under the Semi-Skilled Worker Category-Foodservices Industry, specifically caters to the foodservice sector by offering a pilot project for employers to choose semi-skilled foreign workers to fill jobs as food and beverage servers, food counter attendants and kitchen helpers.

Employers nominating workers in that category must meet certain criteria such as providing a Foreign Worker Settlement Plan outlining opportunities to increase skill set through training, workplace integration and the type of assistance that will be provided to employees' families upon arrival.

Nominated foreign workers must also meet certain CIC-established criteria as outlined on the province of Alberta's website.

Each of the provinces has its own variation of the PNP, but Alberta is alone in extending the eligibility for permanent resident status to nominees' family members.