Canada is one of the biggest agricultural producers and exporters worldwide.
What is Canada Farm Worker Visa?
This visa is issued to foreign workers for seasonal work in Canada. Generally, there is a serious need for workers to work in Agriculture field. This visa is known as Farm worker visa, Fruit Picker Visa or seasonal agriculture visa because these are season based visas to work in farms and fruit gardens. These are mostly Level C or D visas. You can find it in National Occupational Classification of Canada with label of General Farm Worker, Harvesting Laborer, Aquaculture and marine harvest laborers, Pet Groomers and Animal Care workers. Now a days, this is very popular visa because developed countries need more farm workers to manage their crops, taking care of animals and fruit picker jobs. Visa applicants also like this visa because it doesn’t required higher qualification and experience.
Temporary Foreign Worker Program Canada.
Generally, there is no restriction of nationality to apply work visa under temporary foreign worker program. It is not an immigrant or permanent visa rather it allows foreigners to live and work in Canada for a temporary period of time. TFWP visa duration depends on length Job contract.
It is an ordinary sponsored work visa. To apply for this visa, you have to have following major documents:
• Job Offer from Canadian Employer.
• Job Contract Canadian Employer.
• LMIA (employer will obtain from Canadian labor department)
apart from above listed documents, you may need several documents depending on your job position, job nature and your country of nationality. Unlike Seasonal Agricultural work visa program, There is no specific requirement of nationality to apply for general work visa or temporary foreign work visa.
Contrary to farm worker visa or seasonal agricultural visa, it is not a season based visa. This visa is obtainable throughout the year once there is a job.
Do You Need Ietls for temporary foreign worker program?
Ielts depends on your occupation level. First of all, you should check Canadian NOC (national occupational classification). If occupation related to your qualification is included in C & D level, it means there is a possibility that you can get Canada temporary foreign work visa without ielts.
If your occupation is listed 0, A, B level, it means ielts is mandatory for you to get work permit.
Regardless requirement of ielts, you should be able to speak and understand English depending on your job position and job nature, after all you are going to working in an English speaking country.
Seasonal Agricultural Work Program:
This is different from Temporary Foreign Workers Program. It is a season based visa. Canada Immigration offers plenty of work visa programs to foreigners to fulfill shortage of labor in Canada. Though it requires high educational qualification, skills, talent, experience and language skills to qualify for Canada work permit due to high competition from all over the world applications for Canada work visa yet there are still many visa categories where no special education, qualification, language skills or experience is required. These are labor class visas; as you can see in Canada NOC list (national occupation classifications) at Canadian immigration official website. Labor class visas are classified as C & D level occupations in NOC list. Labor visa class includes labour in various sectors like agriculture, construction, electrical field and welding field etc.
Farm worker visa or fruit picker visa, in other words seasonal agriculture visas are also some of those visas where you do not need high qualification and experience. if you get this visa through some visa consultant or some visa agent, they may charge heavy amount as visa fee and other expenses. Actually these visa comes free with minor expenses and mostly employers pay these small expenses but agents demand huge amount, hard to afford.
Canada Farm Worker Visa Requirements:
The main things you need to get Canada work permit is a Job offer or job contract and a LMIA ( labour market Impact assessment) from Canada which looks very difficult to find and Finally, we try to find some agents who arrange these things for us. Agents have some connections in Canada, they have some middleman and with the help of middleman they contact to employer who actually needs a worker. In this way agent arrange job offer and LMIA and then apply work visa for you. According to Canadian Immigration, you need following documents from Canadian employer in order to apply Canadian Work Visa:
• Job Offer Letter
• Job Contract
• LMIA
• LMIA Number
Is IELTS compulsory for Canada Work Permit?
Normally, Canada Visas look difficult due to IELTS because many people hesitate to take IELTS test. IELTS is a requirement if you want to apply visa under Canada permanent residence programs like PNP (provincial nominee program) or Canada Express Entry Program but IELTS is not required to apply for Canada Work Visa if your want work visa in occupation listed under Skill Level D. however, you should be able to speak English or French to communicate well after all you are going to work in an English speaking country. IELTS is plus point for Canada work visa but it is not necessary in most cases for lower skilled workers.
Canada Farm Worker Visa Eligible Countries:
Canada farm worker visa category is normally C or D level class according to NOC (national occupation classification). It does not require any education or extraordinary experience. People under farm worker category are hired to work for various purposes like harvester machine operator, fruit picking, vegetables, grain, dairy farming, hatchery, poultry farm, farm machinery operator, general farm worker, beef cattle farming etc. This type of fields does not need any education and it is clearly mentioned at Canada immigration official website. There is special work permit program which is called “Seasonal Agriculture workers program (SAWP). This is seasonal work permit and normally wages are offered 12 Canadian dollars per hour under this program. This program is available only for some countries specified by Canadian immigration. only Nationals of the following countries can apply under this program:
• Anguilla
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Barbados
• Dominica
• Grenada
• Jamaica
• Mexico
• Montserrat
• Kitts-Nevis
• Lucia
• Vincent and the Grenadines
• Trinidad and Tobago
Rest of countries citizens like Pakistan, India etc. cannot apply under Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program but they are still eligible to apply for Canadian work permit in other fields by obtaining job offer/job contract and a positive LMIA. You can apply for labor work visa not only in farm worker field but also in other fields. But keep in mind, you have to arrange documents according to job position and field you are going to apply for. If you are apply applying for a welder work permit, you have to prove that you are qualified in welding field. You can show some diploma for this purpose. In this way, you can apply for any work visa you want.
How to get Job offer in Canada from outside?
As I explained above that the first and foremost requirement for employment visa is job offer from a Canadian employer. It is actually totally free if you do some work but if you rush and go to agents, you will be charged huge amount. It would be far better if you spend some time and work to get job offer by yourself first. First of all, you should create a CV/resume. If you don’t know how to create a CV, you can request your friend and you can go to some professionals as they can make a cv for you. CV actually, is summary of your biodata, your experience, your target and qualification etc. it doesn’t mean that you must have high education for CV; whatever qualification you have, you should create cv or get it created by someone else for you.
Once you have your CV in your computer, all you need to visit official website of Canadian Immigration https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/home which is actually a job portal but it is different from ordinary job portal websites which you see every day. Canadian employer from all provinces of Canada post their demands for workers at this website. This website works under Department of Employment and Social Development of Canada and It is highly responsive.