Canada Global Talent Stream (GTS) under Temporary Foreign Workers Program

Global Talent Stream is a fast track stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has been launched on June 12 2017 for international highly skilled occupations people. The two intended categories of this stream are High-growth companies and workers in-demand occupations defined by Canadian government.

A program of Employment and Social Development Canada have released Global Talent Stream in which they prioritized processing of applications for work permit in high demand occupations requiring the specialized talent of global workers.

Under this program the employers who need the vacancy to be filled immediately and are not able to find the Canadian citizen or PR holders; they can invite overseas candidates’ to join them on immediate basis.

The employers who have been authorized to hire through the Global Talent Stream they can directly offer overseas skilled professionals and the required process to invite overseas candidate like Labor Market Impact Assessment (LIMA) & work permit which will be taking 10 Business days for applications to be completed.

This program will at first be trialed for 24 months if it seems profitable then it will be continued further.

Categories of Global Talent Stream  

There are two categories under the GTS

Eligibility for Category A– high growth company to increase their growth is in need for the in-demand talent for foreign candidate;

And

Eligibility for Category B– if you are in search of highly-skilled foreign workers to fill positions in occupations founded on the Global Talent occupations list.

The companies of any sector acknowledged as high growth companies come under category A.

The following is the list of organizations which are Employment and Social Development Canada designated referral for the GTS:-

• Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
• BC Tech Association
• Business Development Bank of Canada
• Communitech Corporation
• Council of Canadian Innovators
• Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
• Global Affairs Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service
• ICT Manitoba (ICTAM)
• Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada – Accelerated Growth Service
• MaRS Discovery District
• National Research Council – Industrial Research Assistance Program
• Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
• Ontario Ministry of Economic Growth and Development
• VENN Innovation

Additional requirements for Category A are that they need to prove that the company is hiring unique and specialized talent and/or a minimum of five years’ specialized experience.

Future employees with advanced knowledge of the industry with relevant advanced qualifications may be suitable. The candidate should be highly paid with a salary of min $80,000 CAD per year or above.

Category B (Skills Shortage list)

The organizations who can show a demand for foreign talent to fill the position of high skilled occupation on the skill shortage and are able to pay the existing minimum wages or higher, comes under this category B.

Given below are the in-Demand occupations which have been identified as skill shortage by Canada. (This list may be updated periodically.)

 Work Permit Introduced

Two new work permits are also introduced as of 12^th June 2017, that the occupations which comes under the ‘O’ & ‘A’ list of National Occupation Classification those candidates can work in Canada for a time span of 15 days in 6 month period as well as researchers undertaking projects in Canada can stay for 120 days in 12 month period, without the work permit.