Canada aims to attract remote workers with new digital nomad visa
In late June, Canadian immigration minister Sean Fraser announced that Canada was going to be making changes to its immigration policy, aimed at attracting high-skilled STEM workers from abroad with simplified visas as well as launching a new “digital nomad” strategy aimed at luring some of the highly mobile workforce to Canada.
The strategy, Fraser said, will “allow people who have a foreign employer to come and work in Canada for up to six months, live in communities in this country, and spend money in communities in this country. And should they receive a job offer while they’re here, we’re going to allow them to continue to stay and work in Canada.”
“When software engineers, data scientists, technology product managers and other key professionals are able to come to Canada, they will be snapped up by companies that are desperate for skilled workers,” said Nick Schiavo of the Canadian Council of Innovators. “Easing the pathway to Canada for highly skilled technology professionals will allow Canadian companies to hire more swiftly, capitalize on market opportunities and move at the pace of business.”
Canada’s immigration changes also look to be trying to take advantage of some of the volatility in the U.S. labour market, by clearing a pathway for American H-1B visa holders in the United States. With a lot of tech layoffs in the past year south of the border ― and a lot of people on H-1B visas scrambling to find new jobs ― Canada wants to bring some of them here. To do so, the government is creating an open work-permit stream that allows up to 10,000 H-1B visa holders to come and work in Canada.
What might be interesting to watch is whether this creates increased competition with the United States, now that we’re openly looking to poach some of their tech talent. The move has prompted some concern, stateside, about losing some of their top talent.
“This is a smart immigration move for Canada, but very bad news for the United States,” writes Daniel Di Martino, a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “For years, we have been severely limiting the number of high-skilled immigrants we let in legally and delaying the typical legal immigration process by years through burdensome red tape. Now, other countries are actively recruiting our few high-skilled legal immigrants.”
Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.