Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - November 2007
Canada is losing its skilled foreign workers to the United States, Britain and Australia: countries with more aggressive policies for keeping foreign students in their countries to work and live after graduation.
With the population of Canada aging and labour shortages already emerging in many parts of the country, a more effective policy for attracting foreign students to stay after their studies is essential.
According to a study released this week, Canada is losing a skilled labour population as large as 30,000 people annually because our immigration policy makes it difficult for foreign students to stay in the country after graduation. The study recommends that the government create a national strategy on international students and streamline the student visa process, as well as perform a larger overhaul of immigration policy to address this issue.
It is especially important that Canada stops losing its international graduates because we have been attracting fewer and fewer international students to come here in the first place. While the USA and Britain together attract about one third of international students, Canada pulls in a measly three percent.
The study was based on interviews with over 900 international students studying in Canada. Only one third of students interviewed planned to stay in Canada after graduation. The rest were either going home or heading south of the border to the United States to look for work. There was a general sentiment that Canada does not want to see foreign students stay after graduation. This is not surprising given that our current policy requires that foreign graduates leave the country if they have not found employment within 90 days of graduation.
The study recommends that this time be increased significantly and that the government put more resources into educating employers about the hiring international graduates. Many employers currently have the mistaken impression that they can’t hire an international graduate unless they are unable to find a suitable Canadian graduate for the position.
International graduates represent exactly the kind of skilled, hard-working labour that Canada is currently desperate for. It is high time that we stop throwing up red-tape and make staying and working in Canada easier.
