The Temporary Foreign Workers Program has always provoked questions about wages for domestic workers and the rights of foreign workers. In 2002, the government added a stream to the program that permitted employers of “low-skilled workers” to start recruiting abroad. Upon arrival in Canada, these workers’ visas – like those admitted under some other streams — were tied to one employer and making a change to their employment circumstances presented bureaucratic difficulties for all concerned.

Media critiques of the program ranged from fears of worker exploitation to wage suppression in the labour market. In a new working paper published by the National Bureau for Economics Research, labour economist Professor Kory Kroft of the Department of Economics and his co-authors (Isaac Norwich and Matthew J. Notowidigdo of the University of Chicago and Stephen Tino of TMU) studied one aspect of the program to determine how workers with closed permits fared by comparing those who gained permanent residency (PR) status earlier to those who gained it later. [Read more…]