TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Chen, Wen-Hao
AU  - Fang, Tony
        TI  - The Wage Effects of Restricting Temporary Foreign Workers: Evidence from Canada’s 2014 TFWP Reforms
        PY  - 2025/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18240
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18240
        AB  - This study examines the labor market impacts of Canada’s 2014 reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which introduced stricter limits on hiring low-skilled foreign workers. Using a difference-in-differences framework with Labour Force Survey data from 2005 to 2019, we compare wage outcomes for domestic workers in TFW-intensive occupations to those in similar low-skill jobs unaffected by the reforms. Robustness checks— including event study analysis, propensity score matching, placebo tests, and additional validation with Census data (2006, 2011, 2016)—consistently show that the reforms led to a statistically significant increase in wages for affected domestic workers. The estimated impact ranges from 3.7% to 4.5%, suggesting that restricting access to temporary foreign labor modestly improves wage outcomes for low-wage Canadians. These findings offer timely insights amid renewed policy efforts to tighten immigration, highlighting the potential benefits of targeted reforms while cautioning against broader restrictions that could undermine labor market responsiveness and sectoral needs.
        KW  - temporary foreign workers
KW  - immigration policy
KW  - labor market
KW  - wages
KW  - low-skilled workers
KW  - policy evaluation
KW  - difference-in-differences
        ER  -