H-1B visa foreigners in US flock jobs in Canada
Published:Wednesday | July 19, 2023 | 4:20 PM
TORONTO (AP) — The Canadian government is recruiting high-skilled foreigners working in the United States to move to Canada instead, and the programme has been so successful that it met its target of 10,000 applicants within the first day.
The government this week launched a special work permit for foreign workers who already have obtained an H-1B visa in the US, who number nearly 600,000 and come mostly from India and China.
The programme's 10,000 quota was filled in the first day of the week, Canadian Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told The Associated Press.
Fraser said his government saw an opportunity with the recent mass layoffs in the US tech sector.
“We wanted to capitalise on the opportunity,” Fraser said.
“The H1-B visa has a unique feature built into it that says if you don't find alternative arrangements for work within 60 days you are not permitted to remain in the United States.”
Each year, up to 85,000 people are selected for H-1B visas in the US, a mainstay for technology giants such as Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. and International Business Machines Corp.
The H-1B visa programme allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialised occupations in sectors like technology, engineering and medicine.
Usually, they're issued for three years and renewable.
If they are fired or let go from the company in the US that sponsored them they have to find a job and be sponsored within 60 days.
The move comes as a wave of layoffs have hit the US tech sector.
Companies like Meta, Amazon and Google have made cuts.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Service said about 50,000 people had their H-1B visas revoked due to loss of employment between October 2022 and April 2023, and about 12,500 did not transfer their visas to some other legal status.
“Tech workers watch very closely what opportunities exist for themselves,” Fraser said.
“They are going to go where they are wanted.”
Follow The Gleaner on Twitter and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.