Last Updated On 29 August 2023, 8:54 AM EDT (Toronto Time)
The government of Canada lifted the limitation of working hours temporarily effective November 15, 2022, and international students can now work unlimited hours while studying.
Canada has been facing a labour shortage for quite some time now, negatively affecting businesses and workers.
New Update August 2023: Recently, one of our followers on Instagram shared that he got an email from IRCC asking him to participate in a survey regarding their experience with the full-time work policy for international students.
This survey will remain open until September 11, 2023.
To save the falling economy of Canada, Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, introduced a new temporary public policy.
On October 7, 2022, he announced that from November 15, 2022, to December 31, 2023, post-secondary students are now allowed to work 40 hours off campus while classes are still in session.
Fraser said, ‘This is a win-win situation for not only International students but also Canada”. This policy allows students to have financial stability while completing their studies.
And, They are helping the Canadian economy get back on track. However, only study permit holders or study permit applicants on or before October 7, 2022 are eligible under this temporary policy.
Over 500,000 eligible international students that are already in Canada are getting the possibility of working more hours.
Aim of this policy?
This new policy significantly impacts the livelihood of international students. They can now keep up with their essential expenses in this economic recession.
And not only this, but it is a great initiative that allows students to connect to employers while completing their programme and potentially have jobs after their studies.
Moreover, Fraser says that we will speed up processing to get more people to the country on work permits to contribute to the labour force.
“Canada needs to look at every option so that we have the skills and workforce needed to fuel our growth. Immigration will be crucial to addressing our labour shortage. By allowing international students to work more while they study, we can help ease pressing needs in many sectors across the country while providing more opportunities for international students to gain valuable Canadian work experience and continue contributing to our short-term recovery and long-term prosperity.”
– The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
In these times of economic recession, International students struggled to keep it together. Be it groceries, rent, or interest rates; everything is getting more and more expensive, Not to forget the tuition for international students.
This new initiative is giving them the flexibility to work more hours.
However, Balancing study and work commitments is equally crucial. Those who reduce course loads to shift part-time or stop studying are not eligible to work off-campus.
Failure to meet satisfactory progress may have negative consequences, for example, breach of their visa.
Will This Temporary Policy Extend For International Students?
International students have indeed shifted their focus to the workforce for now. There is no hesitation that this new policy is being considered as a blessing by eligible international students in Canada.
This temporary lift cap on off-campus work hours for international students is only a trial run.
Most of the international students are still working on “cash” because employers are still not offering full-time work on SIN as this policy is temporary.
This is forcing the international students to accept work on “cash.”
If this policy had been introduced permanently, then situation could have been different.
But, decision of government to make it permanent will only be based on data that can be tracked.
“I believe in real-world data. So we are going to see how it addresses the labour shortage in the economy, and we may extend the policy next year”, says Sean Fraser.
He adds that this temporary policy may be extended to a longer period of time in future in order to address the labour shortage.
So, it’s up to existing international students to balance their studies and work.
Additionally, students should be working on SIN so that tax data is collected properly and affect of this policy is measurable by the government.
If this policy has positive impact on Canadian economy and help in addressing the labour shortage, then there is a possibility that this policy may be considered by IRCC to be extended in 2023.
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