Report: Impact of International Students Working Unlimited Hours

‘Nil’ research done on impact of foreign students working unlimited hours: Report

Immigration minister estimates 80% of foreign students were working more than 20 hours per week

Author of the article: Postmedia News
Published Jan 08, 2024

Access-to-information records showed that federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign students to work unlimited hours without researching the impact on unemployed Canadians.

The minister said foreign students were not “taking jobs away from other people,” but never asked his department for data, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

Both departments were asked under access-to-information requests to disclose “all research, studies, literature reviews or other data regarding the impact on the repeal of the 20-hour work cap on foreign students on labour markets, youth unemployment or hiring of Canadian post-secondary students.”

No data was found and Miller’s office did not comment.

“The information you are seeking does not exist,” said the Labour Department.

“Right now we have nil response on the information you are requesting,” the Department of Immigration said in statement.

On Dec. 7, the minister told reporters: “I don’t think students are taking jobs away from other people, given the labour shortages that are happening in Canada.”

Back then, he estimated 80% of the 807,000 foreign students in Canada — which is about 646,000 students — were working more than 20 hours weekly.

Previously, foreign students had been limited to a 20-hour work week, but then cabinet temporarily suspended the cap on Nov. 15, 2022, and Miller extended it past a Dec. 31 expiry to April 30.

“There’s labour shortages across the country,” said Miller. “It is costly to be a student in Canada. My focus primarily is to make sure that the public policy that we have in place is one that reflects the ability of the student to actually do what they’re supposed to be doing, which is study without bankrupting themselves.”

The Immigration Department estimated 500,000 foreign students were working under the cap in 2022 and that lifting it increased those numbers by 29%.