The Provincial Nominee Program, or PNP for short, is an employer-driven program that speeds up the immigration process for certain categories of skilled workers. More and more Alberta employers are using this program because they recognize that temporary foreign workers want to stay in Canada permanently, and their jobs are becoming more permanent rather than temporary as the labour market tightens.
Employers begin the PNP process by applying for approval to recruit foreign workers in the appropriate categories. The employee that is recruited must also meet the requirements of the program.
The categories of skilled workers that qualify changes from time to time and currently include skilled workers, as defined by Citizenship & Immigration Canada, international graduates, and semi-skilled workers such as:
- Food and beverage processing industry workers
- Hotel and lodging industry workers
- Manufacturing workers
- Trucking industry workers.
More information and applications for the PNP program may be found at Alberta’s Immigration website.