Immigration Minister Marc Miller says worldwide college students will be capable to work off-campus for as much as 24 hours per week beginning in September.
The Liberals briefly waived the 20-hour cap on work hours for worldwide college students in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to ease labour shortages.
That waiver expires Tuesday.
” greatest practices and insurance policies in different like-minded international locations, most of them restrict the variety of working hours for worldwide college students. Canada’s guidelines must be aligned or we’ll discover our applications attracting increasingly candidates whose major intent is to work and never finding out,” Miller mentioned.
“To be clear, the aim of the worldwide college students program is to review and to not work.”
The brand new work restrict comes because the federal authorities clamps down on a surge in worldwide scholar enrolments throughout the nation.
Critics have warned that permitting worldwide college students to work full-time may flip a examine allow into an unofficial work visa, which might undermine its goal.
Miller mentioned his authorities is setting the cap at 24 hours as a result of that appears “affordable,” and would enable college students to work three full eight-hour shifts.
He additionally famous that inner work by the division reveals greater than 80 per cent of worldwide college students are at present working greater than 20 hours per week.
The work hours restrict will return to twenty hours per week till September, when the federal government can implement a everlasting change to make it 24 hours.
There are not any limits on the variety of hours worldwide college students can work once they’re not actively enrolled in school, comparable to in the course of the summer season.
The Canadian Press reported earlier this yr that officers in Miller’s division warned the federal government in 2022 that the short-term waiver may distract college students from their research and undermine the target of short-term overseas employee applications.
Miller beforehand floated the concept of setting the cap completely at 30 hours per week. Nonetheless, on Monday, the immigration minister mentioned that might be too near full-time hours.
“We all know from research as properly that while you begin working in and round 30-hour ranges, there’s a materials affect on the standard of your research,” he mentioned.
