What are LMIA-approved jobs in Canada?

Canada has over 1 million job vacancies across 20+ sectors and around 232,000 Skilled Workers got jobs in multiple sectors in Canada. However, the federal government of Canada, along with the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), uses the Labour Market Impact Assessment to ensure that jobs in Canada are offered to foreign workers only when there are no qualified native workers available for that job role. Job roles for which an employer has to get an LMIA are known as approved job roles.

 

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What is an LMIA?

The ESDC issues a document called the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for certain employers who are willing to recruit a foreign worker for a job role in their company. A positive LMIA report for a specific job vacancy confirms that the employer can recruit a foreign worker as there are no skilled native workers available for that post.

 

Most Canadian employers require an LMIA to recruit foreign workers. Therefore, most jobs in Canada are LMIA-approved, and foreign workers must submit an LMIA while applying for a Canada work permit. However, according to a recent announcement, Canada's top 8 Tech Firms are exempt from LMIA.

 

Top 10 jobs in Canada that received LMIAs

Canada issued more than 60,000 LMIAs in 2023. The table below lists the job roles for which the majority of LMIAs were issued in 2023:

Job Title	No. of LMIAs issued in 2023
General Farm Workers	8289
Cooks	5187
Food Service Supervisors	3739
Food Counter Attendants, kitchen helpers, and related support occupations	2576
Administrative assistants	1619
Retail sales supervisors	1358
Information systems analysts and consultants	1168
Computer programmers and interactive media developers	1133
Transport truck drivers	1131
Construction trades helpers and laborers	994
Administrative officers	990

 

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