Canadian employers often struggle to bring in global talent and the highly skilled experts they need in order to grow, boost hiring plans and facilitate the transfer of knowledge in Canada. For those reasons, in November 2016, the Canadian government announced the Global Skills Strategy.

The Global Skills Strategy, which is expected to be implemented later this year, aims to stimulate the Canadian economy by helping high-growth companies attract foreign talent and reducing visa and work permit processing times. In particular, it is expected that this strategy will:

• help qualifying employers make job-creating investments in Canada;
• reduce visa and work permit processing times to two weeks for certain highly skilled workers; and
• introduce a work permit exemption for very short-term work of 30 days or less in certain low-risk fields and for international students wishing to work in Canada during brief academic visits.

Although many important details of this strategy still remain unknown, we anticipate that many multinational corporations and Canadian-based employers, particularly in the high-tech industry, will qualify for and benefit from this strategy.

We will keep you updated on the implementation of this initiative.