17-08-12
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking advantage of the upcoming presidential election to launch a campaign promoting immigration reform, and seems to be using the Canadian immigration system as inspiration.
The NYC mayor stressed that Canada issues more employment-based visas than the US, despite having less than one tenth of the population. Economic-based immigration is a strategy that Bloomberg, a man who knows a thing or two about business, has long been an advocate of. A recent report released by the Bloomberg-led Partnership for a New American Economy, suggests that immigrants (representing just 12.9% of the population) accounted for 28% of new American businesses in 2011. That number jumped to 36.6% when isolating for immigrant-rich New York.
The mayor’s immigration campaign also proposes that America launch a guest worker stream to facilitate the movement of low-skilled labour. Similar to the Canadian Temporary Work Permit or Foreign Worker program, this immigration stream would allow low-skilled workers to fill the labour demand in regions of the country facing shortages of seasonal/low-skilled workers.
To learn more about Canadian immigration programs, please visit FWCanada’s ‘Immigrate to Canada’ section and follow @FWCANADA on Twitter for up-to-the-minute immigration news.
