A sign advertising open positions at the Montreal Career Fair and Training Expo in Montreal, Que. Photo by Graham Hughes/Bloomberg files

Article content

Article content

Nearly half of young Canadians said they wouldn’t look for work that requires regular overnight shifts or frequent and heavy physical effort, which is what many small businesses are looking for, CFIB said.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Nine of 10 small businesses that rely on TFWs say they cannot fill those positions with local employees, it said.

Article content

Article content

“Canada’s youth are not looking for overnight kitchen shifts or work in rural and remote communities,” Dan Kelly, CFIB president, said in a press release. “The temporary foreign worker program has become a convenient scapegoat for a tighter job market for Canadian youth, but the argument just doesn’t hold up.”

Article content

The federal government implemented measures between October 2023 and November 2024 to reduce reliance on the TFW Program, but in April said it would temporarily increase the allowable share of low-wage temporary foreign workers in eligible rural regions.

Article content

Kelly said cuts to the TFW program, which has become controversial in recent years, don’t hand jobs to youth, but create staffing crises.

Article content

CFIB said the TFW program is still essential to help small businesses fill persistent gaps in roles that local youth are unwilling or unable to take, in addition to helping protect Canadian jobs in local businesses.

Article content

It said that more than a third of youth are unwilling to look for jobs that are mainly outdoors and exposed to weather conditions or jobs that pay at or near minimum wage.

Article content

Article content

Harvesting accounts for more than 30 per cent of all TFW positions, work that’s physically demanding, outdoor and seasonal. Other top jobs filled by TFWs are nursery and greenhouse labourers, food service supervisors, cooks and livestock labourers, all jobs that involve irregular hours, seasonal work or rural locations.

Article content

Article content

Even when youth are open to certain roles, most want to stay close to home, CFIB said, with only 19 per cent willing to relocate to a different city or town for a service-sector job, while just eight per cent would move to a small town or rural community and only three per cent would consider a remote or isolated community.

Article content

“There’s no lineup of young people from urban areas applying for a 5 a.m. bakery shift in rural Saskatchewan,” CFIB policy analyst Molly MacCormack said. “Pretending otherwise and limiting access to labour doesn’t get those jobs done.”

Article content

She said high youth unemployment does not guarantee a readily available local workforce.

Article content

“Canadian kids may be willing to serve food in a nearby restaurant, but unless there is staff to start early, work late or deal with a hot kitchen, the system breaks down,” she said.