For some occupations, the processing time to issue an LMIA has been increased up to 4 months.
The federal government of Canada reports of the continuing delays in processing Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs).
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which governs the issuance of work permits in Canada and LMIA applications, has published the average processing time for each category of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
The processing time for LMIA applications can vary from up to 10 days under the Global Talent Stream to 120 working days under the low-wage workers’ stream. For agricultural workers and nurses, an LMIA is issued within 25 days, and for workers with high wages, it is issued within 85 days.
The ESDC statement says that they are currently facing a large number of LMIA applications, which leads to longer processing times under some streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
This is the second time since October 2018 when ESDC warns of delays in LMIA processing.