Having recognised the shortage of live-in caregivers, the Canadian law provides for an opportunity for qualified candidates to apply for and work in Canada temporarily with the possibility of applying for permanent residence after 2 years of service in this industry.

Eligibility criteria

To be considered under the conditions of the program, an applicant must demonstrate the following: 

1. Education and training. An applicant must have successfully completed the equivalent of Canadian secondary school and have completed a formal training of at least 6 month duration aiming to provide care for children, the elderly or disabled people or, in the alternative, has had a year of full-time employment similar to that is being offered including at least six months of continuous employment with one employer in that field or occupation within three years immediately prior to applying for employment authorization.
2. Official language abilities. An applicant has a level of fluency that enables him to communicate effectively and independently in an unsupervised setting.
3. Conditions of the job offer. The applicant and the employer have to sign an employment contract. The offered wage must be comparable to that of Canadian live-in caregivers based on the labour market information from official sources. The Employer must provide working conditions that are consistent with federal and/or provincial standards. Sufficient advertising efforts must have been conducted to find qualified Canadians or foreign workers already in Canada before applying to hire foreign live-in caregivers. The employment must be full-time. The employer must have sufficient income to pay a live-in Caregiver. A worker must be provided with acceptable accommodation in the employer’s home.

Work permit application process outline

Once the employer received an approval from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, a foreign worker needs to apply for a work permit. Upon approval of a work permit application, the foreign worker will be issued with a letter instructing him to obtain his work permit at a port of entry to Canada upon his arrival to Canada. 

Applying for Permanent residence

Live-in caregivers are eligible to apply for permanent residence after they have worked for two years in the Live-in Caregiver Program within four years of their arrival in Canada under the conditions of the Program. An applicant may opt to apply for permanent residence based on the calculation of time required to be eligible to apply (that is 3,900 hours within a minimum of 22 months which may include a maximum of 390 hours of overtime of authorized full-time employment). Family members residing abroad may be included into the permanent residence application and processed at the same time with the principal applicant.

Expenses

An applicant is required to pay the following government processing fees associated with this program (in Canadian dollars): 

• $150 to be paid at the time of the work permit application submission
• $550 to be paid by the principal applicant at the time of the permanent residence application submission
• $550 to be paid for a family member of the principal applicant who is 22 years of age or older, or is less than 22 years of age and is a spouse or common-law partner principal applicant
• $150 to be paid for a family member of the principal applicant who is less than 22 years of age and is not a spouse or common-law partner.