Reductions in Both Permanent and Temporary Residents Levels for the Next 3 Years
Supplementing changes this year to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada, the federal government has now announced that the number of new permanent residents (“PRs”) from 2025 to 2027 is to be significantly reduced[1]. In 2023, the government announced that its goal would be 500,000 new PRs in the year 2025. Instead, the government now plans to have 395,000 in 2025, a reduction of 105,000. In 2026, the goal is 380,000 new PRs. In 2027, the goal is 365,000.
Last year in 2023, the number of new PRs was 471,771[2]. The decrease to 395,000 in 2025 represents a decrease of approximately 20% from that period.
Permanent residence has already become more competitive in 2024, with significantly higher points scores required for economic class applications compared to the period of 2020 to 2023 [3]. This means that companies will lose talent that have been trained and are productive workers. This could cripple some sectors like healthcare and construction. It will also pose greater challenges to Canadian companies in recruiting high skilled workers from abroad who may not want to relocate without a reasonable opportunity to become PRs.
These changes are not surprising. In the past few years, the government has made a number of reactive policy decisions that are shortsighted and reactive to public opinion. This is just more of the same but on a much larger scale. . After very high immigration levels over the past few years, the government has reversed the course completely. It intends to allow for housing, infrastructure, and health and social services to catch up, and for the unemployment rate to be reduced, before moderately increasing immigration levels again. However, this reduction will also have negative consequences. The bottom line is that Canada has an aging population and workforce in which natural-born population growth cannot keep up with population decline due to deaths. Robust immigration policies focused on sustainable long-term growth are required for the population to be maintained and thus, for the Canadian economy to be competitive in the future. The maintenance of the number of people in the workforce is required to also ensure that the health and social service needs of the aging population can be met, with many in the workforce now reaching retirement age.
The government has projected that because of its change in policy, the overall population is expected to decline by 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026, before growing by 0.8% in 2027.
The government has also projected that the number of temporary residents in Canada, which is currently 3,002,090 as of Q3 2024 [4], will decline by 445,901 in 2025, by 445,662 in 2026, and will increase slightly by 17,439 in 2027. Again, with many temporary residents in the Canadian workforce, these declines will pose challenges to Canadian employers and to the maintenance of the workforce at large which provides the tax base to support the health and social services for Canadians. You can read about changes to temporary resident programs in our previous posts: https://www.cilf.ca/news/.
The government will continue to make it more difficult for many people to come to Canada and for many people to stay in Canada. During these challenging times in the Canadian immigration landscape, if you have questions about coming to or remaining in Canada for yourself or an employee, you can reach out to us for a consultation. Our Canadian immigration legal professionals can be reached by phone (416-368-1111) or via email: caruso@cilf.ca; fagan@cilf.ca; bonisteel@cilf.ca; ali@cilf.ca; mukherjee@cilf.ca; garciafialdini@cilf.ca.
[1]https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2024/10/government-of-canada-reduces-immigration.html
[2]https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240327/dq240327c-eng.htm
[3]https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/ministerial-instructions/express-entry-rounds.html#wb-auto-4
[4]https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710012101
