How Canadians are being screwed by foreign workers

[I am Groot]

There's been a 68% increase in the numbers of people coming to Canada under the Temporary Foreign Worker program. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg. The overall numbers are fairly low; only about 220,000 foreigners in here, many working agricultural jobs. But we've got a hell of a lot more in under the International Mobility Program - more than a million more. That's a 193% increase. Then we have foreign students, who the government is increasingly letting work to the point many of them are only here to work and as a way to garner quick acceptance as permanent residents. There are 800,000 of them now, a 300% increase over ten years ago.

All told, over two MILLION foreigners are working in Canada's economy helping to ensure wages remain stagnant.

Now how about housing? Two million people needing housing has an enormous impact on housing shortages. But apparently, not enough, because the Trudeau government has recently decided to let people here under the TFW and IWP programs bring their families with them. That includes adult children. Good luck finding housing, kiddies. Watch more and more bungalows increase to seven figures in value.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-use-of-temporary-foreign-worker-program-soared-in-2022/

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

There's been a 68% increase in the numbers of people coming to Canada under the Temporary Foreign Worker program. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg. The overall numbers are fairly low; only about 220,000 foreigners in here, many working agricultural jobs. But we've got a hell of a lot more in under the International Mobility Program - more than a million more. That's a 193% increase. Then we have foreign students, who the government is increasingly letting work to the point many of them are only here to work and as a way to garner quick acceptance as permanent residents. There are 800,000 of them now, a 300% increase over ten years ago.

All told, over two MILLION foreigners are working in Canada's economy helping to ensure wages remain stagnant.

Now how about housing? Two million people needing housing has an enormous impact on housing shortages. But apparently, not enough, because the Trudeau government has recently decided to let people here under the TFW and IWP programs bring their families with them. That includes adult children. Good luck finding housing, kiddies. Watch more and more bungalows increase to seven figures in value.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-use-of-temporary-foreign-worker-program-soared-in-2022/

I haven't seen any compelling evidence of foreign workers lowering the wages. Most "studies" along those lines that i've seen were severely flawed and the raw data says otherwise.

But i can't argue with you at all when it comes to housing and resources like medical resources (which is in crisis every bit as much as our housing).  We simply can't bring in people faster than we build homes or support resources. It will lead to serious social unrest.

[I am Groot]

29 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I haven't seen any compelling evidence of foreign workers lowering the wages. Most "studies" along those lines that i've seen were severely flawed and the raw data says otherwise.

But i can't argue with you at all when it comes to housing and resources like medical resources (which is in crisis every bit as much as our housing).  We simply can't bring in people faster than we build homes or support resources. It will lead to serious social unrest.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canadian-wage-growth-lagging-u-s-because-of-immigration-levels-cibc-1.1704641

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-why-canadian-wages-never-seem-to-go-up

[Guest]

Its a double edged sword.

CERB turned Canada for many, into a country of slackers who either didn't want to work and get paid, or didn't want to work in office and permanently wanted to work from home.

This ended, but these behaviors remained. Good luck finding mechanically skilled workers. People ghosting in interviews is a major problem for those already struggling to find staff in a now fully reopened economy.

I don't see how we could do anything but allow more immigrants into Canada. Especially if they are educated, skilled and ready to work.

These people will gladly take the jobs vacated by a now pickier and younger work force. I fail to see the problem with this, personally. Wages are out of control. I'm seeing employers being forced to offer heavy handed bonuses, just for showing up and outlasting your probationary period. This isn't a win. Its sad.

[CdnFox]

17 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canadian-wage-growth-lagging-u-s-because-of-immigration-levels-cibc-1.1704641

Did you actualy read that story? Despite the headline NOWHERE in the story do they claim or offer any evidence it's due to immigration. They note we allow immigration and then ,note that we don't have enough people for the jobs we've got so employers are looking at automation.

Complete swing and a miss there. C'mon. At least read the stories. Give me something that's at least got SOME sort of indication that wages are down due to immigration directly with some sort of facts beyond just a headline.

 

17 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-why-canadian-wages-never-seem-to-go-up

this one is even worse - it specifically says that wage growth lags because of a lack in productivity. In other words it's showing that slow wage growth has nothing to do with immigration.

I've seen some actual studies and none of them point to lower wage growth due to immigration.

Here's the only thing i've seen so far in a few studies. It can sometimes LOOK like average wages are impacted but they're not. Here's how that works.

Employers prefer canadians. THey have ties to the community, they speak better english, they have common culture etc. They would RATHER pay more and get a canadian. So if they hire a recent immigrant the immigrant tends to get paid less, they don't have a track record, their education isn't the same, etc etc.

So - if a canadian gets 50 dollars an hour and an immigrant gets 40 - the AVERAGE income is 45. Now - i f you hire TWO immigrants then its 40+40+50 / 3 =43.33 dollars per hour. OH NO WAGES FELL!! But of course they didn't. And the Canadian is still getting paid the same.

So as we increase immigraiton it may LOOK like wage growth slows down - but  really that's not the case.

Wage growth issues seem to be mostly tied to productivity. We are falling behind badly in productivity and that is accelerating. And that means 25 dollars of labour here gets a business less actual work done than 25 dollars worth of labour in other countries. And THAT is our biggest issue.  Not immigration.

 

[CdnFox]

48 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

Its a double edged sword.

CERB turned Canada for many, into a country of slackers who either didn't want to work and get paid, or didn't want to work in office and permanently wanted to work from home.

Well cerb didn't make people want to work from home, being forced to work from home for 2 years made people want to CONTINUE to work from home.

48 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

This ended, but these behaviors remained. Good luck finding mechanically skilled workers. People ghosting in interviews is a major problem for those already struggling to find staff in a now fully reopened economy.

That's a problem but it's not the biggest. At the end of the day even slackers need to eat so they would reenter the workforce at some point.

The problem is during covid a CRAPLOAD of people retired. They were either at that age anyway or just about and a lot of them sold their larger houses for shittonnes of money, moved into smaller places (or to newfoundland because cheap) and took their retirement early

That left a very large labour shortage. I hear it from almost all of my contractor companies. It's getting a LITTLE better now but it was REALLY bad - like unbelievably so.

 

48 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

I don't see how we could do anything but allow more immigrants into Canada. Especially if they are educated, skilled and ready to work.

These people will gladly take the jobs vacated by a now pickier and younger work force. I fail to see the problem with this, personally. Wages are out of control. I'm seeing employers being forced to offer heavy handed bonuses, just for showing up and outlasting your probationary period. This isn't a win. Its sad.

The problem isn't immigration per se.  Regardless if it's "slackers" or retirement -we both agree there's a shortage. And targeted immigration can help.

But - that does NOT take into account the housing shortage. Or the medical services shortage OR the other shortages we have.

And that does create issues.

[CdnFox]

3 minutes ago, Contrarian said:

Long term CERB can destrpy a society, is my view. There has to be some conditions attached, like to do something, one should be productive somehow.

Well, cerb is over now. ti was always supposed to be short term, but the gov't ran it far longer than they should have.

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

And that does create issues.

I never said our government was competent. A lot of the issues are due to covid, but were made much worse due to incompetent government policies.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Well, cerb is over now. ti was always supposed to be short term, but the gov't ran it far longer than they should have.

They got votes out for it.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

They got votes out for it.

They did. And more for turning people against each other over vaccines. Remember just a few weeks earlier trudeau was insisting nobody would be pressured or forced into getting a vaccine. Then they did some polling and when they triggered the election the FIRST thing he said was those evil non vaxed people have to go.

That's his other favorite thing - creating division and hatred. I literally watched families and long term couples break up over this. My family was a little more sane and we only had one anti vaxer (he's passed now, not from covid). But - again and again i saw people at other people's throats over it.

I don't know that we'll ever heal those rifts.  But - it won votes.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I literally watched families and long term couples break up over this. My family was a little more sane and we only had one anti vaxer (he's passed now, not from covid). But - again and again i saw people at other people's throats over it.

Yeah, it was brutal. Me and my wife were on the fence regarding vaccines for the longest time. I'm prediabetic, had a stroke and have a heart defect that put me at an incredibly high risk of stroke, hence the first one. She has high blood pressure, and had valid questions about safety.

We were dismissed as selfish, and we got to see humanity at its worst.

I ultimately was reassured by my doctor on my issues, so got vaccinated. But Trudeau removing that space to have questions, especially when some of the demographics who questioned the most were aboriginal, and racial minorities--yet he painted them as right winged fringe groups, just put you in a position where you had to vaccinate. Either that, or remain silent on your stance.

I don't blame the many couples I saw become at odds due to this, as the leader at the top was fanning those divisions through his media.

[CdnFox]

33 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

We were dismissed as selfish, and we got to see humanity at its worst.

Honestly - i was absolutely stunned. I never thought we'd see each other as canadians turn on one another like we saw then and still see now. it destroyed families and ended long term relationships.

Honestly - i feel like canada died during that stretch. I have seen disaster and hardship strike canadian communities and always people came together to help out. Hell there's a play about it for what happened during 911.  It's literally our thing.

Not this time. People at people's throats. Firing people. And my personal favorite - a COMMON position that "We'd rather see people get no medical treatment and die than be treated by an unvaccinated nurse".   Like - oh my GOD you MUST be kidding.

Personally i'm in a high risk group so vaxxed and boosted. But - i would never condemn ANYONE who felt it wasn't the right idea for them.

Covid tore us apart as a culture and a people and i just don't see that ever healing again. Justin managed to literally kill the Canadian identity we all knew best - that Canadians stand together in tough times. We don't anymore.

[Guest]

56 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Covid tore us apart as a culture and a people and i just don't see that ever healing again. Justin managed to literally kill the Canadian identity we all knew best - that Canadians stand together in tough times. We don't anymore.

Its unfortunate. I've seen countless businesses get harassed, because of someone taking an anti-vaccine position. People are shocked that there was a spike in Asian hate crimes? Its obviously not warranted, but when you have an increase in hate, unintended consequences and victims will be targeted by it.

I know of a few people who committed suicide. Trudeau prided himself that suicide rates were stable, but omitted to mention the sheer spike in homelessness, overdoses and hopelessness he created.

The influx of immigrants is the best scenario of the total mess he will ultimately leave behind.

[Michael Hardner]

9 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

 

I ultimately was reassured by my doctor on my issues, so got vaccinated. But Trudeau ...

Let me get this straight, you got advice for your doctor and went to Trudeau for a second opinion?? ???

Why do so many conservatives listen to Trudeau???

[eyeball]

On 4/1/2023 at 10:11 AM, I am Groot said:

All told, over two MILLION foreigners are working in Canada's economy helping to ensure wages remain stagnant.

Hmmm, we have foreign workers where I work and my wages have increased by 12%.  They also added a bonus for the end of the year.

They made it worth coming out of semi-retirement.

Edited April 2, 2023 by eyeball

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Let me get this straight, you got advice for your doctor and went to Trudeau for a second opinion?? ???

I didn't care what he had to say. I broke covid lockdown rules, daily as did my neighbors. We would take power walks, and do groceries 3 to 5 times a day. 

If there was a risk of arrest, I was good with it, as being locked in too would have been me losing my marbles. We did our own thing.

I was eluding more for the backlash for openly doing so. It was taboo.

[eyeball]

16 hours ago, CdnFox said:

They did. And more for turning people against each other over vaccines.

You can thank US right wing yahoos for doing that. It was plain as day in March of 2020 the US would suffer the worst from COVID because of the disdain they were so quick to subscribe to.

[I am Groot]

21 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Did you actualy read that story? Despite the headline NOWHERE in the story do they claim or offer any evidence it's due to immigration.

 

Tal argued Canada’s mass immigration targets are helping ease our country’s labour shortage, which in turn is tamping down wage growth.

21 hours ago, CdnFox said:

this one is even worse - it specifically says that wage growth lags because of a lack in productivity. In other words it's showing that slow wage growth has nothing to do with immigration.

What makes it all the more unsettling is that the corporate-backed organizations pushing Ottawa to hike immigration targets, such as The Century Initiative and the Conference Board of Canada, have acknowledged that higher immigration leads to lower GDP per capita.

21 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Employers prefer canadians. THey have ties to the community, they speak better english, they have common culture etc. They would RATHER pay more and get a canadian.

Evidence? Studies? Cite?

21 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Wage growth issues seem to be mostly tied to productivity. We are falling behind badly in productivity and that is accelerating. 

And one of the major reasons is that rather than increasing training or technology employers can just bring in temporary foreign workers or hire from a continuing stream of desperate immigrants.

[CdnFox]

16 minutes ago, eyeball said:

You can thank US right wing yahoos for doing that. It was plain as day in March of 2020 the US would suffer the worst from COVID because of the disdain they were so quick to subscribe to.

Don't be an ass.  This is canada, and it was 100 percent entirely trudeau.  ENTIRELY.   Just before the eleciton he was swearing it would never happen. He stepped out of the GG"s office and immediately attacked the unvaccinated and ran his campaign on it. He made it sound as if anyone who didn't get a vaccine was trying to kill your grand mother.

he would go on after the election to say vaccine hesitant people were misogynists and bigots and were a waste of space. Those are quotes. He questioned if they should even be 'tolerated'.

No - the spit has NOTHING AT ALL to do with conservatives or right wing ANYWHERE.  This is ENTIRELY on him - a leader who DELIBERATELY WEAPONIZED VACCINES AND COVID to get ahead  politically.

The man is a disgusting scumbag who is 100 percent responsible for canada tearing itself apart and for permanent divisions that are never going to heal.  For votes.

I know you like him - but there is no arguing that this is his legacy.

[bush_cheney2004]

21 minutes ago, eyeball said:

You can thank US right wing yahoos for doing that. It was plain as day in March of 2020 the US would suffer the worst from COVID because of the disdain they were so quick to subscribe to.

 

OK....the U.S. actually helped to develop several COVID vaccines....Canada not so much (Trudeau's deal with China bit him in the ass.).

 

 

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

OK....the U.S. actually helped to develop several COVID vaccines....Canada not so much (Trudeau's deal with China bit him in the ass.).

 

 

And the only reason they got developed so quickly was due to project lightspeed, which provided the necessary money for both moderna and pfizer in the end.  And that came from..... a republican.

So complete swing and a miss claiming it's the republicans fault.

[herbie]

Forget about degenerating into another Covid rant. We'd be stuck in the middle of a major recession right now if the benefits weren't handed out.
They are long over, so they can't possibly be to blame for current worker shortages. Nobody's sitting on their ass getting free money. 15 years ago I a had a couple kids I could've shorted every payday, all they looked at on the stub was their EI insurable hours... 20 yr olds who think like that don't count and aren't worth worrying about.

There's a real shortage, right now in every field. Stores, restaurants still aren't fully stocked and back to full hours. There's a shortage of drivers slowing the supply chain delivery. Huge numbers have retired and left the work force, sll of the age there's a huge bump in the need for medical services.

So unless your actively pumping out babies already of working age, we need to get people from somewhere.
 

 

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

OK....the U.S. actually helped to develop several COVID vaccines....Canada not so much (Trudeau's deal with China bit him in the ass.)

Yes well its always been America's journey that matters more than its destination.

But like I said it was just as obvious it would be harder on you than us and this still seems to be the case going forward.

[bush_cheney2004]

3 minutes ago, eyeball said:

But like I said it was just as obvious it would be harder on you than us and this still seems to be the case going forward.

 

That has always been the case:    Eagle vs. Blue Heron

 

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

I know you like him - but there is no arguing that this is his legacy.

Who argued that?

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

So complete swing and a miss claiming it's the republicans fault.

Who claimed that?

You really need to learn how to read and stop letting your knees jerk you around.