Starting on November 15, foreign students studying in Canada will be able to work off-campus for an unlimited amount of hours. This reprieve is available through the end of December 2019.
International students are currently only permitted to work 20 hours a week off-campus while studies are in session. Due to this constraint, they frequently ended up working in low-paying entry-level occupations or doing so illegally, which resulted in deportation.
The interim relaxation, announced on October 7 by Canada’s immigration minister Sean Fraser, is intended to assist in resolving the crisis of labor shortages that Canadian firms are currently experiencing. Additionally, it will lessen the financial strain on overseas students, many of whom are from India.
“From November 15, 2022, to December 31, 2023, international students who are in Canada and who have off-campus work authorization on their study permit will not be restricted by the 20-hour-per-week rule,” says Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the immigration department of the Canadian government. This interim modification will also apply to foreign nationals who have already applied for a study permit as of October 7, assuming their application is approved.
It should be emphasized that future students who submit their study permit applications after October 7 are not eligible for the exception. Some academics believe that this might lead to an imbalance.
To prevent job searchers from abusing this temporary flexibility, safeguards have been put in place. Study permit holders are nevertheless obliged to balance their obligations to both work and study because they are not permitted to work off-campus if they cease studying or reduce their course load to just study part-time.
Currently, there are more than 500,000 international students studying in Canada, with a sizable portion coming from India. According to ApplyBoard, a Canadian online recruitment portal for overseas students, there will be a huge increase in Indian students in the 2021 academic year. Nearly 1,15,000 Indian students received approval to study in Canada between January and September 2021. This broke the previous record set in 2019, which stood at 1,11,110. We project that more than 1,40,000 Indian students were approved in 2021 based on previous trends. This total surpasses 2019 by 25%.
Jobandeep Singh Sandhu, an Indian student of mechanical engineering, had his immigration status revoked in 2019 and was ultimately deported from Canada for working more than the legal 20 hours per week driving trucks. The Alliance has been actively advocating for reform ever since.
An eight-hour workday is typical. Three days a week is typically the standard for part-time employment (this aggregates to a minimum of 24 hours). According to the Alliance, the 20-hour work limit essentially forced migrant students to participate in irregular work that was not covered by labor laws.
News Mania Desk
