International students in Canada will temporarily be allowed to work more than 20 hours a week.

The move – which will be in effect from Nov. 15 until the end of 2023 – is meant to help address ongoing labour shortages in Canada.

Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, made the announcement at an Ottawa coffee shop this morning as Canada’s labour market remains exceptionally tight, with nearly a million job vacancies reported in the second quarter of 2022.

“With the economy growing at a faster rate than employers can hire new workers, Canada needs to look at every option so that we have the skills and workforce needed to fuel our growth,” Fraser said, in a statement.

“By allowing international students to work more while they study, we can help ease pressing needs in many sectors across the country, while providing more opportunities for international students to gain valuable Canadian work experience and continue contributing to our short-term recovery and long-term prosperity.”

Under current rules, international students in Canada are able to work off-campus for up to 20 hours a week while class is in session, with that cap lifted during scheduled breaks like summer and winter holidays. Students who are eligible to work on-campus were not subject to a cap on their hours.

Fraser noted this temporary measure is expected to allow over 500,000 eligible international students already in Canada to potentially work more hours.

In August, Kamloops city councillors voted in favour of lobbying the federal government to make this change. That motion was put forward by Councillor Bill Sarai, who billed it as an effort to both address the high number of job vacancies will also helping international students address the rising costs of living.

“Everything around them has gone up from housing to food, gasoline, utilities, everything,” Sarai said.

“The only thing they are not capable of doing is asking for an extra hour or two hours of work to offset some of those costs, so that is where we are asking for temporary relief for those international students because there are jobs out there not being filled because of that cap.”

Sarai’s motion had the support of Kamloops business groups, with Chamber President Acacia Pangilinan telling NL News that while easing the cap won’t solve the labour shortages, it will help ease the situation.

“Not everyone is going to have the capacity to go to school full time and work in excess of 20 hours but there are lots of students who want that experience and who want to be able to do that and so, we think it’s s good idea to apply pressure to the Feds to try to look at that rule to open it up a bit for our international students,” Pangilinan said.

“We’re in support of the city going forward and lobbying for that too.”

Friday morning, Fraser also announced a pilot program to help automate the application process for students who need to extend their study permits.

It will allow for some applications to be automatically approved, but Fraser says the new process will not automatically reject claims.

– With files from The Canadian Press