Temporary Foreign Worker Program Labour Market Impact Assessment Statistics 2018-2025

Overview:

Each quarter, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) publishes Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) statistics on Open Government Data Portal, including quarterly and annual LMIA data related to, but not limited to, requested and approved TFW positions, employment location, employment occupations, sectors, TFWP stream and temporary foreign workers by country of origin.
The TFWP does not collect data on the number of TFWs who are hired by an employer and have arrived in Canada. The decision to issue a work permit rests with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and not all positions on a positive LMIA result in a work permit. For these reasons, data provided in the LMIA statistics cannot be used to calculate the number of TFWs that have entered or will enter Canada. IRCC publishes annual statistics on the number of foreign workers who are issued a work permit: https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/360024f2-17e9-4558-bfc1-3616485d65b9. 

Please note that all annual tables have been updated to NOC 2021 (5 digit and training, education, experience and responsibilities (TEER) based). As such, Table 5, 8, 17, and 24 will no longer be updated but will remain as archived tables.

Frequency of Publication:

Quarterly LMIA statistics cover data for the four quarters of the previous calendar year and the quarter(s) of the current calendar year. Quarterly data is released within two to three months of the most recent quarter. The release dates for quarterly data are as follows: Q1 (January to March) will be published by early June of the current year; Q2 (April to June) will be published by early September of the current year; Q3 (July to September) will be published by early December of the current year; and Q4 (October to December) will be published by early March of the next year.

Annual statistics cover eight consecutive years of LMIA data and are scheduled to be released in March of the next year.

Published Data:
As part of the quarterly release, the TFWP updates LMIA data for 28 tables broken down by: TFW positions: Tables 1 to 10, 12, 13, and 22 to 24; LMIA applications: Tables 14 to 18; Employers: Tables 11, and 19 to 21; Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP): Tables 25 to 28.

In addition, the TFWP publishes 2 lists of employers who were issued a positive or negative LMIA: Employers who were issued a positive LMIA by Program Stream, NOC, and Business Location (https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/90fed587-1364-4f33-a9ee-208181dc0b97/resource/b369ae20-0c7e-4d10-93ca-07c86c91e6fe); and Employers who were issued a negative LMIA by Program Stream, NOC, and Business Location (https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/f82f66f2-a22b-4511-bccf-e1d74db39ae5/resource/94a0dbee-e9d9-4492-ab52-07f0f0fb255b)

Things to Remember:

1.	When data are presented on positive or negative LMIAs, the decision date is used to allocate which quarter the data falls into. However, when data are presented on when LMIAs are requested, it is based on the date when the LMIA is received by ESDC.

2.	As of the publication of 2016-2023 annual data (published in April 2024) and going forward, all LMIAs in support of 'Permanent Residence (PR) Only' are included in TFWP statistics, unless indicated otherwise. All annual data in this report includes PR Only LMIAs. Dual-intent LMIAs and corresponding positions are included under their respective TFWP stream (e.g., low-wage, high-wage, etc.) This may impact program reporting over time.

3.	Attention should be given for data that are presented by ‘Unique Employers’ when it comes to manipulating the data within that specific table. One employer could be counted towards multiple groups if they have multiple positive LMIAs across categories such as program stream, province or territory, or economic region. For example, an employer could request TFWs for two different business locations, and this employer would be counted in the statistics of both economic regions. As such, the sum of the rows within these ‘Unique Employer’ tables will not add up to the aggregate total.


Organization: Employment and Social Development Canada | Emploi et Développement social Canada