What can foreign workers do?

It seems that along with the economy, the immense need for temporary foreign workers in Alberta to fill vacancies in almost everything from fast-food jobs to oilsands construction contracts could loose its steam.

For years, the province has struggled with labor shortage caused due to a dizzying building boom along with a changing demographic that is seeing the retirements of baby boomers. The solution to the problem has been overflow of immigrants in the region, most of who are living in Alberta on a one or two year visas granted to them on their employers’ request.

Almost one in five foreign workers living in Canada have Alberta as their home and they do everything from making beds in hotels to operating machines in Fort McMurray’s oilsands.

The Employment and Immigration Minister of Alberta, Hector Goudreau, said that the province has been fortunate, but if this worldwide recession continues for very long, then it will probably catch up to them as well.

But many believe that the tough economic times have already started hurting many companies, especially the ones which typically recruit temporary foreign workers.

The result has been seen in cases of Petro-Canada, Shell Canada, Suncor and most recently Norwegian oil and gas firm StatoilHydro, all of whom have scaled back or shelved their construction projects in Alberta.

Alberta Federation of Labour’s Gil McGowan said that all this have impact on men and women who come from Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries with hopes that one day they will become permanent residents.

McGowan, a local critic of Canada’s 32-year old temporary foreign worker program, said that he believes that all this keeps wages artificially low for all workers and leaves an open door for employers to exploit foreign workers.

He said that ever since the global economic crisis began, large number of temporary foreign workers brought to Alberta as oilsnads construction workers have either lost their jobs or have been sent home.

Andreas Junkier and Uwe Schulz, both middle-aged carpenters, arrived in Calgary this year after they were recruited at a job fair in Germany. Both of them put all their belongings into storage and prepared to spend two years in Canada, which was the duration of their visa. But after working for only two months, they were told that there wasn’t any work for them and either they should return home or find someone else for a job.