Hire French-speaking or bilingual foreign workers to work in Canada outside Quebec

About the process

There are options to make hiring French-speaking or bilingual foreign workers to work in Canada outside Quebec easier. Hiring a French-speaking or a bilingual candidate can benefit you by

• allowing you to serve clients in both official languages
• allowing you to hire without a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) through Francophone Mobility
• providing opportunities for you to tap into new markets or international networks
• allowing you to receive support from the Francophone community, such as
  • the Francophone Immigration Networks
  • the Réseau de développement économique et employabilité (RDÉE) (in French only)
• providing access to our outreach officers located across Canada

How to hire a French-speaking or bilingual foreign worker to work in Canada outside Quebec

Step 1: Find out if you need a labour market impact assessment

You can find out if you need to get an LMIA by reviewing the

• LMIA exemption codes
• work permit exemptions

If an exemption code applies to your situation, you must include it in your offer of employment.

Step 2: Choose the right process

Hiring when you don’t need an LMIA

If the French-speaking or bilingual foreign worker you want to hire meets the eligibility requirements, you can hire them without an LMIA.

To do this, you must

1. submit an offer of employment through the Employer Portal using LMIA exemption code C16 for Mobilité Francophone
2. pay a $230 employer compliance fee
3. provide your worker with their offer of employment number: a 7­digit number they will require for their application

Find out more about hiring without an LMIA.

Once you’ve completed the steps above, the worker can apply for their work permit.

Other options to hire French-speaking or bilingual foreign workers

Contact the Dedicated Service Channel to recruit foreign candidates

You can find foreign workers from a Francophone country to fill temporary job openings by submitting this job profile form (PDF, 338 KB) to the Dedicated Service Channel.

Several countries offer free services, through public employment agencies (PDF, 1 MB), available to all Canadian employers who want to hire a French-speaking foreign worker to work in Canada outside Quebec. We can connect you to these services, which will help you find foreign candidates and support you through the recruitment process.

Through these services, you can recruit foreign candidates from a number of countries, including

• France
• Belgium
• Morocco
• Tunisia
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Senegal
• Mauritius

Find out more about the Dedicated Service Channel’s services.

The Destination Canada Mobility Forum

The Destination Canada Mobility Forum 2023 will take place

• in Paris, France, from November 18 to 19
• in Rabat, Morocco, from November 22 to 24
• online, from December 4 to 6

The event connects Canadian employers with skilled French-speaking or bilingual foreign candidates in a variety of fields, such as

• information technology
• multimedia
• marketing and communications
• finance
• hospitality
• culinary and food industries
• translation
• aeronautics and avionics
• construction

More information about how Canadian employers can post their job offers will be available when registration opens in September 2023.